


With Love, Lotor

by epiproctan, flyingisland, googlyeyeseyes123, kalakauuas



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eventual Smut, Hopeless Romantic Lotor, M/M, Minor Hunk/Shay (Voltron), Unintentional Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-05-08 17:15:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14698743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epiproctan/pseuds/epiproctan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingisland/pseuds/flyingisland, https://archiveofourown.org/users/googlyeyeseyes123/pseuds/googlyeyeseyes123, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalakauuas/pseuds/kalakauuas
Summary: Lance has a stalker, Lotor has a plan, and Allura just likes to watch the world burn.





	1. Dear Lance,

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TLaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TLaw/gifts).



> For our dearest Traffy: a wonderful, caring, smart, and hilarious person. We hope that we can finally manage to murder you with the sheer amount of ridiculousness in this story.

Lance fiddles with the coffee mug in his hands, twisting the cardboard cozy around slowly and eyeing all of the letters of his name, written in a loopy, feminine font. He’s familiar enough with this penmanship by now—with the logo printed on the opposite side of the cup, with the extra sugar and cream that he never orders but ends up with anyway, and the familiar pattern on the take-away bag where Hunk is currently hogging the scones. He knows that Hunk only brings him lunch when Shay is working at the coffee shop down the street. And he isn’t sure how he feels about being a pawn in this helpless game of amorous cat and mouse.

If, maybe, Hunk knows that he’s the mouse and not the cat, but he just doesn’t care. If Hunk could ever be clever enough when it comes to the romantic wiles of women to understand that Shay only puts a little sharpie heart after his name, and not Lance’s, because she’s just waiting for him to collect the nerve to actually ask her out.

Or, at the very least, ask for her phone number. It’s been six months since Hunk started frequenting the coffee shop just to see her, and somehow, he hasn’t managed to learn more than just her name and the general schedule that she tends to work.

But Lance doesn’t have the patience to worry about that today. He’s stressed out, strung out, totally off-kilter.

He forgot to wash his uniform last night. It’s wrinkled and too loose where he wiped off his wet hands at the end of his shift. It smells like yesterday’s cologne and old deodorant. It’s a little off-color, not as bright and spotless as he usually prides himself on, not as noticeably well taken care of as he usually tries to present himself, even here, at the job where he wastes twenty hours of his life every single week.

He doesn’t like looking less than his best even on the worst days. And he doesn’t like the idea of how many cute girls have wandered so innocently into the convenience store today, perused the shelves, and didn’t even take notice of him sitting behind the counter at all. They didn’t laugh at his clever jokes about the various items that he rang out for them. They didn’t even offer him a cute flutter of their eyelashes in response to his very best lines.

He feels akin to the mysterious grease stain on his sleeve today. He feels like a smudge that doesn’t really belong in a pristine and well-organized place.

Coran, his manager, boasts to all who will listen that he keeps the cleanest shop of all the chains in the tri-state area. He’d raised a brow at Lance today, made a comment about his downtrodden appearance and the sorry state of his uniform, but he’d seemed, at the very least, to take enough pity on Lance not to write him up over it.

But it still doesn’t feel good. He doesn’t like disappointing Coran when it comes to one of the few things that he actually cares about. He can please a guy like Coran just by taking care of himself, presenting himself as another decoration in their store. He can charm the customers with his upbeat attitude, keep the shelves stocked and the floors clean.

And then he can get away with stealing baked goods from the adjoining bakery, slushies from the machine humming just a few feet away. And if he closes early sometimes, Coran pretends that he hasn’t noticed. If he comes in late a few times a week, Coran doesn’t seem like he cares.

For the last few years, this has been the routine that he’s grown comfortable with—all toppled down, just because of one horrible day and one very terrible mood.

He feels like he’s toeing a very dangerous line now. He feels as though, if he doesn’t turn his luck around very soon, he might have to say goodbye to his weekends off, too.

And he feels on edge, as well, because even as Hunk shuffles over after stealing a few spoonfuls of sugar from the coffee section and a few plastic mini-cups of cream—even as he’s sliding into the seat across from Lance at the cafe table—Lance can’t focus on the words that are leaving his mouth. The nervous, lopsided smile that he offers. The way that he waves a hand helplessly in front of Lance’s face as though to divert his attention back to him.

He’s vigilant today, just as he was yesterday. Just as he was the day before, and the day before that. Hell, all month, maybe—if he hadn’t lost count by now. Since the beginning of the semester. Since the first moment that triggered every horrible, unspeakable tragedy that’s befell him since the initial moment that he met eyes with—

He grits his teeth. As much as he doesn’t want to think about this, let alone _talk about it_ , he wonders if he might need Hunk’s muscles later, lest things get out of hand. With Hunk working next door at the bakery, just through the revolving door between their shared walls, he knows that he can rely on him to come bursting in, mixing spoon swinging, if something happens.

But Hunk needs to know first that something _might_ happen, and _why_. He knows this. He knows that Hunk knows that he tends to be a little dramatic. And he knows that Hunk won’t be quite as eager to believe that he’s in true peril unless he warns him beforehand.

So, with a deep sigh, and a long gulp of his drink that sears down his throat, he slams his cup against the table. A few specks of coffee splatter out from the mouth hole in the lid, dotting the space between them. Hunk’s eyes travel to them, then to him. His brows raise into his hairline. His lips flatten in a pensive, concerned line.

“Are you okay, dude?” Hunk asks then, sitting up straighter in his seat, as though he thinks that Lance might come completely unhinged and throw the remainder of his drink across the table at him, “You’ve been pretty on edge lately. You… you wanna talk about it?”

Lance can feel the tension knitting together in the center of his shoulders. He twitches a little, tipping his head to the side as though to crack the kinks out of his neck. He scrubs both hands over his face, letting out a deep, anguished sigh and leaning back a little bit further in his seat—enough so that front legs lift off of the floor with a quiet creak.

“It’s this guy,” Lance says, and he ignores the way that Hunk sighs as though he already completely understands what Lance is trying to tell him, “He’s a total stalker! You know he’s come in here every single day since I met him? He doesn’t even buy anything! He just looks at me over the aisles like the grotesque Lurch-wannabe that he is!”

Hunk looks like he understands a whole lot less now, but he stops himself before he asks any questions. They’ve known each other for awhile now—since middle school, Lance thinks—and if Hunk has learned anything about him, it’s that he definitely doesn’t need much prompting to spill his guts about just about anything.

“Listen, he’s in my calc class, right? First day, I come in and this asshole is in my seat! It’s assigned seating! The professor sent us the list in an email like—like two weeks before the semester even started! I _know_ he knew what he was doing! He was just making some kind of pathetic power move, like he was going to crown himself alpha male of the whole stupid math class on the first day!”

Hunk hums quietly in admission, lacing his fingers together with his elbows on the table. He rests his chin on his hands, leaning a little bit further forward. His own coffee sits forgotten just a few inches to his left. Precariously, Lance notices, close to the edge.

He flicks his gaze back to Hunk’s face.

“So I tell the asshole, _‘Look, this seat is taken’_ , and do you know what this prick says to me?”

Hunk shakes his head. He’s dumbfounded at best, and at worst, maybe a little confused as to why Lance is making such a big deal out of someone accidentally taking his seat.

“He smiles this horrible, pretty-boy smile—all straight stupid white teeth like he’s so proud of himself for using teeth whiteners or something! And he pushes his dumb perfect hair out of his stupid handsome face, looks at me like he’s on some kind of fucking rom com and he’s gotta pace everything totally perfect, and he says, _‘Oh, are you taken too?’_ ”

Hunk sputters a laugh, pushing himself back away from the table. Lance can feel anger flaring up in his chest, boiling with the furious flames in his belly, making him feel sick and disgusted about all of this, all over again.

“I-I’m sorry,” Hunk wheezes helplessly between laughs, “th-that just sounds like something that you’d say. Are you really going to hate on this guy for giving you a taste of your own medicine?”

“It’s not funny, Hunk!” Lance practically screeches, smacking his hands against the table hard enough that Hunk’s coffee wobbles ever-closer to the edge. Hunk catches it just in time, just before it tips over and bursts open on the floor—and for a moment, Lance wishes that it would have done just that.

Even though he knows painfully well who would be stuck cleaning it up. And even though, deep down, he knows that Hunk is right.

He can’t say that it wasn’t a good line. But he can say, with certainty, that this guy’s cocky, shit-eating grin and bad manners had zapped even the best pick-up efforts of all of the usual razzle dazzle that Lance prides himself on providing to unwitting, albeit usually very receptive, women.

“I—I just don’t get what his problem is, okay?! He didn’t even move until the professor told him to! And he acted all snide about that too, like he knew that he was being an asshole but he didn’t care! It was insufferable!”

He’s twitching again now, leaning around Hunk in his newfound paranoia to see if maybe the creep has decided to come back again today—summoned, perhaps, by the sound of another person mentioning him, like a vampire or a demon or some other handsomely devious monster. Lance has heard more than enough fairy tales. He knows that allowing Lotor to come within arm’s reach is nothing short of a death wish.

“I even told him, _‘If you don’t get the Hell out of my seat, I’m going to sit on you’_ —”

“Oh God.” Hunk is laughing again.

Lance reminds himself to withhold a few much-needed pointers next time that Hunk is asking for advice with Shay. At this rate, and with this shitty attitude in the face of his own misfortune, Hunk definitely doesn’t deserve it.

“L-listen to me, okay?! Do you know what that asshole had the nerve to say to me—”

“I think I can definitely imagine.”

“He said, _‘Don’t threaten me with a good time, love’_ —in that ridiculous fake British accent that isn’t even that sexy and I just _know_ all the girls probably go crazy for! L-like, I’m sure someone good-looking like that is just crawling with women! Why can’t he just back off and leave some for the rest of us—w-why can’t he just at least let me have my seat?!”

Hunk is quiet for a moment, after his laughter dies away. He looks as though he’s finally starting to consider this seriously, as though he’s just now managed to get an inkling of how detrimental this entire situation really is.

He’s resting his cheek in one palm now, dragging his cup closer to himself and lifting it to his face. He pauses before taking a short sip, flicking his eyes back to Lance’s face, studying the anger in his expression. Seemingly mulling over every conceivable possibility as to what he might be able to say in the face of such a bizarre predicament.

“So you said that he’s started coming in here too? How does he know where you work?”

Lance shoots up straighter in his seat, immediately filled with relief, with smug satisfaction, with exhilaration as Hunk finally dignifies all of his worries with a response that somewhat supports his conspiracies about this whole thing.

“I don’t know! That’s the weird thing! He just started coming in here one day, and he just—he just walks around! Sometimes he’ll buy like… something small, like a candy bar or something, like when Coran is around or there are a few other customers. But he always just—just _smiles_ at me all weird, maybe says some dumb cheesy British shit, and leaves! I don’t get what his angle is! Why is he trying to psyche me out?!”

Hunk’s frown bends into a small smile, and the snort of his laughter stays deep down in his throat. He’s covering his mouth now, furrowing his eyebrows and turning his gaze away. Lance is already more than fed up with this, but he doesn’t know who else to talk to—where else to go. Short of reporting this to Coran and going through the trouble of convincing him that one of their few new regulars is some kind of crazy stalker, he has absolutely no clue what to do about any of this.

“Have you ever considered that he’s actually trying to hit on you?”

Okay, so Hunk, too, is insane. It feels, to Lance, in this moment, that the entire world has been turned on one side, jettisoned through a tear in the fabric of time and space that’s propelled them into an altered state of being. Everything has been warped into an unimaginable shape, into a strange, inhuman universe that he’s now struggling to comprehend.

Hunk is wrong—so, so painfully wrong. And Hunk is refusing to admit that any of this is a big deal for any of the reasons that Lance has so clearly spread out for him. He’s acting like Lotor—that sick, conniving evil mastermind, could ever be capable of anything but perhaps getting Lance alone once and for all, murdering him, and stuffing all of his limbs separately into grocery bags in the back of his ridiculous, sleek sports car.

Their peers in class seem enamored with Lotor—seem to think that he’s some kind of charmer. They don’t realize what a snake he is. They don’t realize how much of a creep he can be.

And they seem to think that the cheesy, half-baked lines that he uses on them are endearing, even as they’re spoken with a forked tongue. Even as, somehow, Lotor hides his serpentine smile behind a thousand flowery, dramatic phrases that even manage to charm the pants off of their professors.

Lance knows that Lotor is dangerous. He knows that if he’s planning something, it can’t be anything good.

Right now, he doesn’t have the proof to convince anyone but himself.

But in time, he knows, he’ll figure out how to crack this. He’ll convince Hunk, he’ll tell Coran.

By the end of this semester—their weekly classes, their brief meetings when Lotor comes into the convenience store—he’s going to show everyone what a rat Lotor is behind that deceptively pretty face.

And then, maybe, Hunk won’t keep laughing at him.

Then, maybe, he can finally rest easy, knowing that surely a future murderer in the making like Lotor isn’t free to roam the streets.

 

* * *

 

At the end of the night, long after Hunk left and his lunch break ended—long after Coran has retired home for the evening, Lance begins the tedious routine of closing up the store. He locks the doors, eyeing the parking lot well behind the reach of the storefront lights. And he wonders, with a writhing of anxiety in his belly, if the feeling of being watched is all in his head, or if it might be his more primitive instincts begging him to stay on guard.

He thinks about Lotor as he closes, as he peeks around the corners of the aisles warily, shaking as he contemplates what he might be able to use as a weapon if anyone has hid inside well after he’d made the final closing announcement over the intercom.

It’s a small store—a convenience store-bakery combo. A humble venue for snacks and drinks, for old people to read the newspaper in the cafe over coffee in the mornings. For travelers to stop in for a bite to eat during their various journeys to far more interesting places than this.

He thinks about the fact that he’s never went anywhere interesting—never heard of some of the places that Lotor brags about so casually in class. He doesn’t have a rich, important father who funds just about any endeavor that he can think of, just to get him out of the house. A mother who surely throws cash at him in place of hugs, or kisses, or love. He doesn’t even have a car—or enough money left over after payday, once he’s shelled out the funds for rent and food, to ever save up enough to even dream of taking an overnight trip.

This fishbowl town—where everyone knows everyone, where he’s grown up among familiar faces, where nothing but the utmost mundane ever seems to make the news—he feels as though he’s drowning in it. He feels as though, at any point, if something exciting doesn’t happen soon, he might snap.

He knows, deep down, that someone as interesting and accomplished as Lotor doesn’t actually care about him at all. Another game of cat and mouse, he thinks. But he’s just the feathery mouse-shaped toy that Lotor bats between his paws. And he’s allowing himself to be toyed with—allowing himself to inflate this entire ridiculous situation into some kind of adventure just to keep himself occupied through the boring drag of every new day.

He knows that Lotor is just messing with him because, surely, he’s bored here too. Surely, since moving all the way out to Podunksville, USA, from somewhere bigger and busier and _better_ , he’s realized that the charm of small communities wears off so quickly that he must have been sick of it before his movers even managed to squeeze a couch through the front door of his McMansion.

And Lance knows that he’s an easy person to get a rise out of. Just be handsome, have everything handed to you—be cocky and get girls. Waste your stupid charm and your winning good looks on a guy who you’ve already made an enemy out of. Spook him enough by acting like a total lunatic and stalking his job that he feels an eerie chill every time that he glances out of the front windows into the thick blanket of night.

He grits his teeth as he counts the till. He hates that Lotor is even sparing a thought on him. He hates that Lotor couldn’t just give him a chance to hate him from afar—without going out of his way to prove just what a waste of Lance’s anger he really is. Without trying, at the very least, to pretend that the two of them aren’t on completely different wavelengths, just long enough so that Lance could start another foolish one-sided rivalry with him, just how he has with various bigshots, again and again.

He would have hated Lotor regardless, even without a reason to.

And he hates that Lotor has given him a reason to, because now, he can’t get the creep out of his thoughts.

He locks the till in the safe, pulls down the handle and jiggles it to make sure that it’s closed tight. He looks around the store a final time, just to be sure that he’s done everything that he’s supposed to before he finally leaves.

He’s walking home tonight, since it’s warm and the town is generally safe. His apartment is close enough that it only takes fifteen minutes on foot, and he’d reassured Hunk, so idiotically, that he’d be okay traversing that distance alone.

He doesn’t want to leave now. He feels as though something terrible is waiting for him outside. He can feel it watching him—eyes in the dark, someone, _something_ that can see him even when he can’t see it—and the idea of that alone makes his skin crawl. He can feel his coffee and the scones that he pilfered from Hunk churning uncomfortably in his belly.

But he puts on a brave face. He pushes open the door.

And when nothing immediately charges out of the endless black to maim him, he lets out a long sigh of relief.

So he turns, chiding himself for being a baby and allowing his own paranoia to get the better of him, and locks the door, pocketing his keys. He takes one final look into the low-lit store, mentally calculating how much time he’ll have to sleep after showering and studying before he needs to wake up for his morning classes.

And when he turns back around, he isn’t alone. In the dark, in the empty parking lot, in the miles and miles from this minuscule strip mall until his cries for help would ever have the chance of reaching human ears, a figure standing nearly two heads taller than him towers just under a foot away. Unmoving, like a statue. Daunting and too close. Close enough to reach out and touch him, close enough to hurt him. Close enough to grab him and drag him away, never to be seen or heard from again.

He screams—undignified, loud enough to wake the dead.

And the figure reels back, raises its hands, before stepping close enough to reveal itself in the porch lights of the store—tall and dark and handsome. Put together neatly in clothes so expensive that Lance would need to combine three paychecks just to afford a single sock. Fretful, for a mere fraction of a moment, before he contains himself, now that he’s been spotted by another person.

Lotor, of course. For once, not grinning that horrible, smug grin.

“Sorry to have startled you,” he says, his voice more stilted and hurried than the words themselves should sound, “I wasn’t sure when the store closed. I meant to give this to you before you left, but I came back after you had locked the doors.”

He’s pressing something forward—paper folded neatly in his big hand. His eyes are twinkling in the low light. His smile is sharp at the edges. The angular ridges of his face are amplified by the shadows—and Lance feels as though he’s gazing upon the handsome serial killer in some teen slasher. As though, in this moment, anyone watching the unfortunate movie of his life might be screaming at their television screen for him to get the Hell out of here—run somewhere safe, stop being so stupid and understand the true danger in sheep’s clothing for what it obviously is.

But Lance knows that he couldn’t beat Lotor’s long, chiseled legs in a race. He knows that Lotor’s perfectly sculpted muscles aren’t just for show. In a fair fight—or even an unfair fight, even with a head start and the element of surprise on his side here—Lance would have no chance of outrunning him or overpowering him. He holds no illusion that he could survive this, if Lotor isn’t just intending to show up past closing and give him some stupid piece of paper.

And he knows that can’t be it. That’s too inane. Who does that sort of thing, really?! What kind of person is desperate or awkward enough that he wouldn’t just give it to him in class the next morning? Or really, not at all. Does Lotor think that he wants to read his slimy note? Does he think that Lance even thinks about him enough to remember who he is when he isn’t being forced to glare at the back of his ugly head in class?

After an awkward moment in which Lotor continues extending his hand, and Lance stands still as though he has no intention of ever moving again, Lance takes the note. Because he imagines that if he were a murderer, maybe he’d let someone survive a little bit longer if they were kind to him. He might even take pity on them, if he were a nice enough guy. He might, at the very least, make it quick and painless since they didn’t make it more difficult for him.

He clears his throat, taking a small step backwards and offering a limp wave.

“Well, uh, thanks… s-see ya around.”

Lotor’s smile spreads out wide. He offers no words at first, but takes a deep, dramatic bow.

“I will see you tomorrow morning, and I look forward to experiencing your reaction to my… _gift_.”

He turns then, a graceful swivel on his heel. He walks with the straight-backed finesse of a seasoned military officer. He walks with pride, with a powerful gait and a demand for respect that has Lance’s skin crawling all over again.

When Lance hears his steps recede far enough away—when he hears the motor of that hideous sports car roaring to life, and watches the headlights flick on, then slowly pull out from the grainy rock of the parking lot onto the highway—he lets out what feels like his billionth deep breath of the night.

And once his hands stop shaking, he takes a moment to unfold the note, shuffling closer to the porch light to read the elegant calligraphy looping artfully along the page.

 

_To my most exquisite muse,_

_When I first laid eyes upon you, I failed to comprehend the magnitude of your magnificent splendor. Many a poet has waxed on about the guiles of Sirens leading humble men to their ruin through the resonance of their harmonious melodies. Yet, I, a fool, had never pondered that fate would predestine me an encounter with a being quite as ethereal as you._

_Balzac quotes, “L’amour est la poésie des sens.”_

_“Love is the poetry of the senses”, which I, so credulous, so inspired by the bleak Machiavellian outlook of the modern world, refused to believe might be a reality._

_But upon gazing at your resplendent physiognomy, I have found myself born anew: a phoenix rising from the ashes of my prior hapless, bleak and monochrome world._

_You are the Valkyrie who has waged a war in my heart, defeating my own selfish, frigid ideals. You have brought color into a grayscale wasteland, water to the endless desert of my arid soul._

_For you, my lovely cherub, I would provoke the wrath of God himself—if only for the opportunity to gaze upon your glorious smile illuminating the abysmal, tenebrous universe._

_From Balzac, once more:_

_“L’amour est comme le vent, nous ne savons pas d’où il vient.”_

_“Love is like the wind: we never know where it will come from.”_

_And thus, as my confession comes to a close, I implore you to consider these words that I have written._

_And if, perchance, your feelings are swayed to match the cadence of my own beating heart, I humbly entreat that you might find a way to let me know._

_With much love,_

_Lotor_

 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he spits, crumbling up the paper.

As he turns hastily to make his way home—to hopefully get some sleep and forget about this entire awful night—he makes a point of throwing the note as far off into the darkness as he can possibly manage.

Maybe it’s better if he eases off and forgets all about this whole potential rivalry thing. Maybe it’s better if he drops their shared class and gets a new job. Moves to a new town, assumes a different identity.

Maybe, in the long run, exposing Lotor for the fraud that he is isn’t worth it—isn’t viable, even, when it seems as though he has the entire world sans Lance wrapped around his dumb finger.

Perhaps, this really is a misunderstanding. Perhaps Lotor doesn’t want to intimidate him or to flirt with him—to charm him or make a fool out of him.

Perhaps everyone around him is right about Lotor—he doesn’t want what Lance thinks that he wants. He isn’t out to get him. He isn’t trying his damndest to make Lance despise him as much as humanly possible.

He might want something else entirely. He might be trying to get Lance’s attention for reasons that still haven’t made themselves entirely clear.

But as Lance walks the sidewalks and stays mindful of the passing cars, as he makes his way gradually to his apartment and digs his keys out of his pocket to unlock his front door, he realizes that he really has no idea what Lotor might actually want from him, if not the mutual disdain that he’d originally assumed.

And he knows, with absolution, that he never, ever wants to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Flyingisland here! You can call me Moth, if you do so please to. This is a small project that a group of friends got together to create for another very dear friend of ours. It’s our open love letter to TLaw, so to speak, who mentioned offhandedly at one point in time that she would love to read some comical Lancelot.  
> The lovely art this chapter was drawn by the always wonderful, so very talented [madamemauve](http://madamemauve.tumblr.com) / [etoilemauve](http://etoilemauve.tumblr.com)! Thank you so much, aomine, for taking the time to contribute, as well, to this project!  
> It’s been an incredibly fun project so far, so I hope you’re as excited as I am! Next up is kalakauuas’s chapter, and it’s… really something else. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.  
> So anyway, until next week, thank you so much for reading! I hope that you enjoyed it!


	2. Since the First Time I Saw You,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> este capítulo está dedicado con bastante amor a la **traffy** , quien es muy linda e inteligente y especial y la quiero mucho. espero que disfrutes mis horas de labor sin cuenta <3 
> 
> (si no, entonces mex FIGHT—!)

6pm on a Friday, draped over his bed with his phone all too close to his face, and Lotor sighs at the complete lack of notifications on his lock screen. He tosses it somewhere on the bed.

He’s confused. Bewildered. Nonplussed. And maybe slightly disheartened? At the fact that it has been one entire week—seven excruciating, agonizing days—since he last heard from one Lance McClain of the convenience store on 20th. One week with still no response. He knows it can’t be because Lance has tragically passed or is deathly ill, because he’s seen him at school, in the halls, always laughing and smiling with other people. He remembers that wonderful 100 kilowatt smile that stretches his pretty brown cheeks, scrunches up oasis blue eyes… Lotor once thought that only gems could be such a vibrant color, but he’s never been more glad to be wrong.

Speaking of being wrong, he’d figured out he was in the wrong seat even before Lance had stormed in and all but shoved him off. A quick glance at the seating chart that had been emailed out to the class before the new semester confirmed as such, and believe him when he says he was well on his way to moving to his appropriate designation anyway when, well.

Lotor had hoped that a little bit of charm and flirting might diffuse some of Lance’s (in his opinion) misplaced, excessive annoyance, but it’d had quite the opposite effect, to his surprise. Also to his surprise? Just how exquisite Lance McClain was face-to-face. As he said, Lotor had seen that smile from afar and longed to experience it up close, but he’d just gotten wrath instead. Beautiful, beautiful wrath. Which would do fine, for now, since beggars can’t be choosers.

Besides, wrath was a hell of a fertilizer apparently; whatever vague seeds of affection that Lance’s smile had planted in Lotor’s chest grew exponentially after that day, deep-set roots and long vines that twisted him around until he visited this fine boy at work, just to see him a little bit more. The vines twisted around his fingers too, so they wrote a note that Lotor himself thought was quite lovely (thank you, Balzac), a note that he was sure Lance would love. Would drop down to his knees in adoration, emotionally overwhelmed by the poetic mastery of Lotor’s beautifully-chained words, and then declare that he, too, was deeply madly irrevocably in love. They’d both come to the realization that their relationship was destined by the cosmos, and live happily ever after.

But it has been, like Lotor said, seven days. Happily ever after is late, and if Lotor remembers anything at all from his horrid private schools, it’s that lateness is bad. His belly twists with anticipation, he practically jumps at the slightest sign of activity from his phone lately, and he is constantly on the lookout for a glass of tall, dark, and handsome to come walking his way, but the reality is Lance has—what’s the word?—ghosted him. Poof. No texts, no calls, no emails, no smoke signals, no kind of response. He won’t even spare Lotor a glance during class, opting instead to sit rigidly with his gaze firmly forward.

So where did he go wrong? Nothing says high romance quite like a love letter. Why doesn’t Lance agree? Success is Lotor’s middle name, meaning that this grand failure is not who he is in the slightest, and he refuses to give up. Fall down seven times, get up eight. Even if he’s only “fallen” once, but the sentiment behind the saying still resonates.

He needs to devise a more thorough plan. The note was obviously too spontaneous—isn’t spontaneity romantic too? Or is that only in established relationships? Well, no matter. Starting right now, Lotor is going to come up with a plan to Woo Lance McClain. He’s going to do it. He will do it. Soon. As soon as he gets up and isn’t tired. In one—no, two minutes he’s going to get up and—

Ding.

Lotor snatches up his phone, but he does it too quickly and it slides out of his hands, to clock him right on the mouth. Front tooth aching, he picks it up again with slightly more caution, and has to resist visibly deflating like a sad whoopee cushion when the notification tells him it’s a text from his cousin.

 **Allura**  
_> Sent an image._  
_ >I love my mice so MUCH OMG_

Lotor jerks to sit up, and suddenly it’s like the clouds outside have parted just for him, to allow a beaming ray of light through, and the light is shaped like his favorite cousin Allura. She’s done a lot for him over the years, but in this exact moment in time and space, the best thing she will have ever done for Lotor is be Lance’s friend. He’s seen them together on various occasions, and if it weren’t for the clearly strained slash disgusted looks on Allura’s face nearly every time Lance would even just wave his exquisitely manicured hands in her direction, he’d think they were an item. Normally, anyone who caused Allura’s expressions to twist in such a way would earn a first-class ticket to the top of Lotor’s hit list, but given that the current object of his affections is the perpetrator, Lotor is willing to let this slide. Just this once. It’s worth it.

He types out a quick message asking Allura if she’s busy, before making his way over to the desk where his laptop is. As soon as Lotor all but collapses into the chair, Allura replies with a ‘no.’ Perfect. Lotor opens up his computer.

 **Allura**  
_FaceTime…_

“Why on earth are you calling me when we see each other at least once a day?” Allura’s answers are always delightful.

Lotor can’t help a laugh “I can’t speak to my favorite cousin, the most fabulous person in the universe, an absolute queen—”

“You need something.” Allura’s eyes narrow at him over the screen, as she crosses her arms and leans back in her seat. She has one of the mice perched on her shoulder, while Lotor can see the tails of the others creeping along the bottom of the screen. They squeak intermittently.

“That’s quite rude of you, to think of me as someone so advantageous,” Lotor replies.

“You’re a snake and you know it.”

That’s… not inaccurate. Still hurtful. Lotor should’ve known better than to attempt any kind of small-talk with Allura at the beginning of their conversation, she’s too smart to fall for thinly-veiled requests. He has a favor to ask of her, so he’ll just come right out with it.

“You are friends with Lance, correct?” he asks, as if he doesn’t already know. As if he hasn’t been in love from afar for weeks.

Allura pulls a face like that was the last thing she expected him to ask, but quickly schools her features into something almost… eager. She picks up a mouse and nuzzles it. “Yes I am, why?”

“W-well, I was just curious…” Despite all the literal poetic Lotor has waxed about Lance before, something about telling someone else how he feels sends his body into a hot flash. He isn’t a shy person by any means, quite the opposite actually. Lotor is used to being direct with his feelings, but in the whole “relationship” category he’s never had to be direct, not when people directed themselves to him instead. He isn’t used to the chase, and especially isn’t used to Lance already giving him quite a run for his money, but he’s an accomplished athlete. He knows he’ll be able to keep up. If Allura gives him a head start.

He also knows that because he already brought him up, Allura is not going to let the subject go until she feels that Lotor has asked exactly what he intended to, or until she’s satisfied with the amount of information she will pull out of him. He’d rather just offer himself up, bare his soul instead of allowing Allura to torturously peel away the layers until she gets to what she wants. It sounds scary and visceral, but it’s entirely accurate to what a questioning from the princess herself is like.

“You were curious about what exactly? I know you have a class together, so this isn’t something you can ask him.” Even through a computer screen Allura’s eyes are a piercing, knowing blue. Striking in their own right, but nowhere near as beautiful as Lance’s. Nothing could ever compare to that particularly vivid shade.

Just go for it, Lotor tells himself. The worst she will do is say no. And laugh. And tell Lance. That last part maybe isn’t the worst of it, considering Lotor has already told Lance himself, but the idea here is that he gets an in, a second chance, and the only way he can think of that happening is if this goes well. Which, and Lotor is really trying to talk himself off this ledge here, it probably will. He and Allura are family, and good friends. There is no one else in the world he could possibly hope to trust in this endeavor, whether she is friends with Lance or not.

“I was curious about Lance’s relationship status. You see, I gave him a note last week and…” He tells Allura the story so far, of the seat and the love note and the workplace visits and his woes about getting Lance to at least acknowledge him after the fact. Her face grows more and more delighted as the tale goes on, surprisingly.

“I thought you’d be the best person to consult, because you know him on a deeper level than I do, and I know that you have an even better understanding of high romance,” he finishes. That last part is quite true; nowhere else has Lotor seen such an extensive collection of romantic novels and movies, and anyone owning such a collection has to be nothing less than an expert. He knows Allura has cultivated this habit even since childhood, so she has years of experience on top of that. There was a point in his life where Lotor never quite understood the merits of that sort of knowledge, but he’s interested in understanding now, wouldn’t you know. True love, as he has come to realize, needs to be treated with the utmost respect. Anything less than the royal treatment will simply not do, especially for someone like Lance McClain.

“Well,” Allura says after a pause at the end of Lotor’s story. “I guess I really can’t blame you for liking Lance—” Lotor is glad, because if she did that would be rude— “because he is a nice guy, underneath all of his… whatever.” She waves a hand around as she says it, and Lotor is absolutely positive the mice wave their hands too. Paws?

“So you can help me?”

“Of course! I will tell you everything you need to know in order to woo Lance! Now, the first thing you absolutely, one hundred-percent have to do is—”

“Hold that thought!” Lotor leaps out of his chair and scrambles to find a notebook and pen. Such valuable information absolutely has to be recorded, because he can’t risk missing out on or messing up a single detail. He will follow whatever information Allura gives him to a T, religious and ritualistic if he has to. Whatever god is out there will have to appreciate his efforts at following some sort of bible, right?

At the top of the page, just to be cheeky, he writes _Genesis._

“Okay, I’m ready for all the knowledge you have to offer me.” He can trust Allura, she’s never steered him wrong before and Lotor doubts she will now.

“As I was saying, the number one thing you need to do for Lance is serenade him!” Allura sing-songs that last part, making a grand sweeping motion with her arms that has the mice imitating her once again. “Are you at all familiar with the guitar?”

Lotor is furiously scrawling the first bit of information down in his notebook. A serenade, why didn’t he think of that earlier? What could possibly be more romantic than a musical rendition of the feelings in his heart? It’s no wonder Allura is the expert between the two of them. And yes, he definitely knows his way around a guitar, if the lessons he was subject to for the past five years are any indication.

“Where do you suggest I perform this serenade for him?” Lotor asks, tapping the pen to his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps at his place of work?”

“Absolutely not! Not enough space at the convenience store… and Lance is too much of a show-off to appreciate that small of a display. If you really want to impress him, you need to show off as well!” Allura’s gotten increasingly closer to the webcam, until her face is taking up the entire screen, and oh wow is the display in high definition. Lotor won’t point out the growing breakout on her chin, he’s confident that Allura is quite aware, and if she isn't she will be in due time.

Anyways. “So… where then?” He’s shuffling through places Lance might frequent in his brain, but none of them seem quite right. He really had his heart set on the convenience store.

“You know where Lance would just love to be serenaded?” Allura asks conspiratorially.

He doesn’t, obviously. “Wh—”

“In the quad!” she blurts, visibly excited. “You know the one right by the Arus Building?”

Lotor nods, so Allura chooses to continue. “Well, I can’t imagine anything more romantic than such a grand display of affection, if you ask me—and you did. Plus, Lance is quite fond of attention if you weren’t aware, so what better than the attention of not only you, but the entire university?” She’s almost—and Lotor isn’t quite sure about using this word here but he’ll go with it anyway—maniacal in the way she presents her plan to him. She’s clearly very invested in this, so who is he to question her? Allura knows Lance better than he does, unfortunately, but with her devising the plans that will hopefully soon change.

“So, you think I should sing to him in the Arus quad, and that’s it? That will get Lance to acknowledge me and return my feelings?”

“Hm. Maybe not just the singing, you definitely need flowers too. A huge bouquet of flowers to draw more attention. Oh! And a speaker too! Just to make sure he can’t possibly miss a thing!”

Okay. That makes sense. How awful would it be, to go through all that trouble just for Lance to walk right by and not realize it’s all for him? People are always setting up in the quad to entertain throughout the day, and the dorm that’s placed right off to the side always has someone blasting music out of the open windows during the other times. He has to make absolutely sure that he gets Lance’s attention, because it’s only fair after Lance has gotten his. He already has something of a vision going on.

Lotor proposes an idea of his own to supplement. “Do you think, perhaps, I could sing to him, and then when he approaches me in a love-stricken stupor, I gift him another note along with the flowers?” Call him old-fashioned, but he really likes the idea of love notes. Nothing could ever convince him they aren’t high romance, right up there with hand kisses.

He’s relieved when Allura nods eagerly, although she could’ve completely shot the idea down and he still would have surreptitiously made one to hand over anyway.

“How do you feel about perf—serenading him, on Monday? You could do it around 2, right after his Physics lab,” she says next, while watching the mice scurry up and down her outstretched arms. Lotor watches them too, entranced for a second. The mice have always creeped him out a bit; they seem too smart sometimes.

“That sounds perfect,” he replies. “One last question: what song do you think I should sing for him?”

Allura’s grin stretches impossibly wider.

 

 

Thankfully, Monday is a bright day, crisp with a slight breeze and the scent of spring. Blooming flowers, blooming love. It’s the perfect season for romance, and his heart swells just thinking of the possibilities of today.

Lotor sets down the speaker in his right hand and the bouquet in his left, then swings around his guitar to the front of his body, plucking idly at the strings to make sure they’re still tuned. A few twists here, a twang there, until it sounds absolutely perfect.

He also reaches into his pocket to pull out the note folded carefully inside, opening it up to give it just one last glance before he will have to hand it over. Allura helped him out with this one, so his hopes are high for its effect on Lance. She said that it was going to cater exactly to his interests, therefore a response was all but guaranteed.

_To my beloved, Lance,_

_I realize that I am a photographer of no kind, but I can picture you and I together, regardless—and there is no question to what an illustrious image we would make._

_Since our last encounter, I have not been able to rid my thoughts of you. Your splendor continues to plague my being: a malady from which I hope to never recover. I can only envisage how wearied you must be, from running through my mind so endlessly._

_Mio innamorato, you are the answer to prayers I never realized I had made, for your mere presence could make even the most ungodly man fall at your divine feet. Even then, I can only hope to gaze at the ground along which you step so balletically, to reach after your retreating form with the hopes that perhaps someday, you will turn and reach back towards me as well._

_Please, tell me—what was Heaven like when you left it? An allure such as yours cannot possibly be of this world, for you transcend even the brightest of stars. Simply by existing you are already a man after my own heart, a dream that I will follow endlessly. Endlessly, until I can know that you, too, feel the same._

_With much love,_  
_Lotor_

Okay, it still sounds as good now as it did last night when he wrote it. No small mysterious heartbreak gremlins have tampered with it in the meantime, and he’s grateful for that. Everything has been prepared to the best of his and Allura’s ability, so all that’s left is for him to execute this plan as best he can. He’s got this.

Lotor plugs the aux cord into the bottom of the guitar. He checks the time on his watch, and it says 2:01. According to Allura, the lab gets out at 2 in the Olkarion Center, and Lance always makes a point to grab some coffee with their friend Pidge in Arus right after. Considering the distance between Olkarion and Arus, it should take him another two minutes until he’s within a decent range and Lotor can get to playing.

The waiting is objectively brief, but it might as well have been 2 months instead of 2 minutes. Lotor is nervously tapping his foot on the grass, stomach twisting wildly as each second passes by without Lance in his line of sight, what if Allura was wrong and he isn’t going to get coffee today, what if he dropped out—

“Get a load of this guy,” someone says, just close enough for Lotor to hear it, and his heart jumps in his throat when he sees that it’s the man of the hour, Lance McClain himself, looking even more ethereal in the direct sunlight than Lotor had ever seen him. He loses himself in the shards of golden light woven into his soft hair, the glowing rise of fine cheekbones, and the gentle slope of Lance’s nose. His lips—an enchanting shade of pink Lotor didn’t know he could like so much—pull back into a laugh, at whatever his companion might have said. She’s much smaller than him, a prim face hidden behind large round glasses; Lotor doesn’t recognize her but he assumes she must be Pidge.

How foolish he was to have doubted his cousin.

Immediately he gets to playing the song he practiced restlessly over the weekend, plucking gently at the strings of the guitar for a few seconds before he begins to sing.

“Imagine me and you, I do, I think about you day and night, it’s only right..”

His eyes follow Lance as he gets closer, watching his face twist up into confusion before he turns to ask Pidge something in her ear. When he turns to look at Lotor again they make eye contact, right as he sings, “To think about the Lance you love, and hold him tight…”

By now, other people are filtering out of lecture halls or their dormitories, heading towards Arus and therefore passing Lotor as he croons his affections out to Lance for not just him, but for all of them to hear. He’s holding eye contact with Lance still, but out of his peripheral Lotor can see some others pointing or stopping to watch.

Speaking of Lance, a look Lotor can only describe as absolute revulsion marrs his delicately beautiful features when he hears Lotor’s change to the original line of the song.

“Oh, hell no!” he shrieks, “Nuh-uh, not doing that today!” He grabs Pidge by the wrist and bodily drags her along as he begins to all but run away from the scene. Lotor wouldn’t be surprised if Lance’s shoes made a sound like screeching tires with how urgently he leaves.

He doesn’t get it. Why is Lance acting so utterly appalled at Lotor’s serenade? Is he maybe wearing the wrong clothes for a serenade, because if so then he needs to have a word with Allura over what appropriate serenade attire is, or maybe what appropriate Lance attire is—

Okay, Lance is really booking it now. Lotor panics but he doesn’t stop playing, he really needs to keep the flow going because this is probably the best he’s played since he learned the song, but he also really should do something. If Lance doesn’t stay until the end for Lotor to give him the note and flowers, then he’s going to Blow This part 2, and he isn’t sure if he can afford that. Ironic, isn’t it, since Lotor is used to being able to afford anything.

Around him people are starting to chatter amongst themselves but it’s clear most of them have connected the dots, which makes the success of Lotor’s plan all the more imperative. He stops playing.

“Please, Lance, wait!” he calls, almost desperately.

He’s met with the image of Lance whipping around, horrified. “Wait for what, dude? Can you just leave me the fuck alone, holy shit!” Lance doesn’t wait for Lotor to respond and keeps walking, muttering something to a laughing Pidge with a phone in her hand.

“I can’t see me loving nobody but you!” Lotor all but screeches, strumming near-frantically on the guitar. He starts walking behind Lance, chasing him.

Lance walks faster, as fast as he can without having to break out into a run. It’s a good thing he’s shorter than Lotor, or else he would have long outrun (out...walked…) him by now. He has very long legs. Mile long. Runner’s legs; what Lotor wouldn’t give to see Lance in some track shorts—

The aux cord is only so long. Lotor has walked far away enough, and it jerks taut as if to tell him abort! Abort mission! It’s fastened tightly enough to where it pulls Lotor back the second he steps just a little too far, his foot landing on the back of Lance’s shoe. The next thing Lotor knows he’s in midair, watching the guitar fly out of his arms, spinning towards Lance like a well-aimed shuriken until it makes contact with the back of his head and knocks him down too, with an unrefined clang.

He lands painfully on his back, rear throbbing where his tailbone made contact with the ground. The world is silent for a second, until he’s brought out of a brief stupor by the cackling of Pidge, who is bent in half, clutching at her stomach. Slowly, Lotor starts to register that a lot of people are laughing actually, and there are an awful lot of phones out pointed towards him and Lance. Even people in the central dorms are hanging out of their windows to get a look at the action.

Shakily, he gets up, then immediately reaches into his pocket to make sure the note is still there. He could cry in relief when his fingers touch the paper.

“Are y—are you kidding me? What the hell was that for!” Lance is suddenly right in front of him, a wild look in his eyes as his hands curl in the front of Lotor’s button-up shirt. The proximity is enough to send Lotor’s soul ascending, were it not for the less than favorable circumstances. From this distance, he can see a minute, silvery scar cutting across the bridge of Lance’s otherwise perfect nose.

“I’m so very sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“No no no! Don’t “I-I-I’m sorry, didn’t mean to” me! I don’t care!” Lance is growling, now. “You need to quit it with this stupid obsession of yours!”

From somewhere behind them, where a small crowd had continued to gather, someone says, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

“If you would just listen to me, please, look, I have something to give you,” Lotor tries again, but it’s clear Lance is having none of it. He shoves Lotor back with surprising force, running a hand through his hair to expose a curiously cute, peaked hairline.

Another person contributes: “Worldstar!”

“Talk to the hand, dude! Or better yet, don’t talk to me at all,” says Lance, venomously. He straightens out his rumpled shirt, then walks into the Arus building.

Lotor can only look wistfully at the glass sliding doors, his hand still holding the note gingerly. Well, that went well, by professional wrestling standards. His chest aches, as if the fall shattered not just his ass, and his dignity, but his heart as well. He’s about to crumple it up when he feels someone bump his arm.

“Hey,” a feminine voice says. Lotor looks around and doesn’t see anyone. “Down here.”

It’s Pidge, red-cheeked and a little breathless, likely still recovering from the absolute fit she had just minutes ago. She coughs, clears her throat, then wipes a joyous tear. She gestures to the note.

“I can pass that along for you, if you want.”

Even if he’s never met her, Lotor suddenly feels a swell of affection for the small girl, in the way one feels affection for a pet or particularly cute toy. A primal urge in him wants to pick her up and squeeze but he resists. She’s willing to help him, so he doesn’t need to anger her also.

Lotor hands over the paper, carefully. “I would be very grateful if you did,” he says, and Pidge takes it with a nod, before heading inside the building herself.

Now alone, Lotor takes in the people still around him, as if waiting for him to slip on a banana peel that’s suddenly appeared and fall again to the tune of a slide whistle. He tries to give his best attempt at a scathing look, even with his tail between his legs.

“Show’s over, everyone,” he murmurs, and makes to pick up the fallen soldier, his guitar.

He’s going to have to get it repaired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey!!! mf **kris kalakauuas** here with some absolute absurdity that was lovingly dedicated to traffy! seeing this whole thing come together is mad wild in the best way. blease stay tuned for mai’s chap next week because man that is some GOOD SHIT uuuuu i’m telling y’all :ok fingers:
> 
> oh, and thank you for reading!! <3
> 
> artwork for this chapter was drawn by the very talented [Dracosh50](http://dracosh50.tumblr.com)!


	3. I've Fallen So Helplessly In Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Traffy, mi perfecta manzana <3 I haven't known you for as long as Moth, but ever since I joined the GC you have enlightened my dull and lifeless existence uwu Thank you for always being so friendly and good and pure, you deserve a big collaborative gift like this and much, much more.
> 
> I love and value you with all my heart and soul, and I hope you enjoy my chapter!! I wrote it with a lot of love for you and a lot of hate for Lotor <3 <3 <3

“—And then, the idiot trips over his own aux cord and ends up pretty much _throwing_ his guitar at my head! It’s like I’m cursed to only ever have the worst possible things happen to me... Stop laughing!”

The sound of his mother’s giggles don’t let up at his request, which only causes the crease between his brows to sink even deeper and the frown tugging at his lips to grow more petulant.

Lance is grumpily trudging his way down a moderately empty street, phone held up against his face and already tiring out his arm, on his way to start his usual lunch time shift at _Quizsnacks_. It’s the part-time job that fills up his free Wednesday afternoon with something more worthwhile than what could be hours of the thing he’s doing right now — ranting to his mom about the absolute creep that’s apparently set out to single-handedly ruin Lance’s life.

It’s not that he doesn’t have anything better to do —  really, he’s got way more stuff going on! — he just has so many people trying to convince him that Lotor isn’t a complete weirdo that he’s hard-pressed and desperate to find someone that understands, or even just acknowledges, his plentiful woes. The fact a sludge ball like Lotor is having enough of an effect on Lance’s life that it’s taken up his past two weekly Mom Calls just pisses him off even more.

"And I couldn't even escape him after that. The guy just doesn’t know when to quit! He gave Pidge another pretentious-ass love letter for me and it was almost as _shitty_ as the first—”

“Language.”

“Ugh, sorry— But you can't seriously tell me that nothing he's done isn't super weird and stalkerish!" He’s nearly desperate to hear someone validate him on this, just to confirm he’s not the insane one for assuming that a snake like Lotor is up to something shady. That guy almost looks scaly enough for Lance to start getting behind the whole lizard people conspiracy.

"I'm sorry mijo, I guess I just don't know the struggle and agony of having a rich and handsome man doing his best to woo me. You have my sympathy, really," says the woman who's failing spectacularly at supporting her son in his — as he’s been told — _‘irrational’_ suspicion, her tone dripping with mocking sarcasm. The betrayal plaguing Lance’s life right now is honestly astonishing.

"Wow, thanks," he says, voice flatter than his ass after he got whacked by Lotor's weaponized guitar (Guitariken? Guitarna??) the week before. "You'll be sorry when I turn up dead in a $100 trash bag with a crappy love letter carved into my chest or something."

Despite being the one to say it himself, a shiver runs up Lance's spine at the thought. Maybe he should invest in some pepper spray at some point...

"Oh, come on, you know I'm kidding! You just tend to overthink these kind of things a lot, mijo. Have you considered that this Lotor boy might actually have a crush on you?"

Lance scoffs out loud at that, attempting to kick a small rock laying in the street, only to underestimate how close it was and almost tripping in the process. Someone like Lotor would never be after Lance, not unless it were for a playground-esque joke.

God, he can almost hear the slimy fox snickering with his posse of sparkling rich kids, retelling the story of how he bonked Lance McClain over the head with a guitar that was probably worth more than anything Lance could ever hope to own in this lifetime. Replaying the video Pidge mercilessly allowed to spread around campus, basking in all the dick stroking he’ll get from his crew for such a cruel and convoluted act of social torture. Just the thought of it gets his blood boiling.

"I'm telling you, mom, I _know_ people like Lotor; they're too busy high up in their ivory towers, drinking champagne and eating poptarts infused with gold, to mingle with the regular poptart-eating chumps like me. There's no way it's not some kind of dumb prank."

His words are laced with a bitterness that leaves a bad taste in his mouth, something that’s been souring his mood consistently for the past couple of weeks. A barely spoken anger lingers in the huff of air he pushes through his lungs upon spotting his place of work.

"Anyway, I'm at work now so I gotta hang up," he says, before his mom gets a chance to act as the devil's advocate he knows she so loves to be, though he can tell that she’s still itching to reason with him, something about not judging a book by it’s cover and a pep talk only fit for a mother to her son. Well, Lance has read that book before, and he’s not about to pick it up again just because the cover art is different.

"Alright…," she starts, with a heavy sigh followed by a small pause. "Make sure to watch out for any projectile instruments, and call me when you get home!"

"Yeah yeah, love you too."

He shoves his phone away in his pocket with a quiet grumble after hanging up, dragging a hand over his face in an attempt to wipe away any of the scowl still stuck to his features. He really wasn’t in the mood to be on the other end of another one of Coran’s lectures about having a _'friendly and welcoming aura in the shop!'_. Lance loves the guy, sure, but damn can he ramble.

The first hour or so goes by as usual, nothing too exciting occurring aside from the occasional crying child begging their parents for a donut. It's a weekday, so there's not a particularly heavy flow of customers for Lance to deal with despite it being lunchtime, and the biggest order he has to deal with is the regular group of old ladies Lance likes to refer to as the _Golden Girls_. They throw a few compliments at him that would be weird coming from anyone under the age of 60, and he brings their drinks to their table like he does every time, even though he’s not a waiter and it’s not his job. Maybe he likes the praise he’s showered with in payment for their special treatment, don’t judge him.

Anyway, - everything is pretty much the same as it always is, just another mundane shift at the cafe spent waiting for the time to tick by and free him, only to continue being bored doing homework at his desk.

That is, until four men come strolling in, all dressed up in ridiculous red and white, striped vests, with boater hats to boot. If it weren't for the fact he knew Coran would yell at him for shamelessly laughing at his patrons, Lance would be busting his gut before the door had a chance to close. Out of respect and a need for cash, though, he settles for muffling a snort behind a strained smile.

Unfortunately, as the group lines themselves up in order of height, Lance spots a glimpse of white hair hiding behind the tallest, and the budding smirk stretching across his lips falls immediately at the realisation that he won't be the one laughing at anything today.

 _Kill Bill_ sirens are ringing in his ears as he watches the silky locks duck further down and out of sight, his fists clench into white-knuckled balls while he preemptively tries to come to terms with his own mortality before it’s too late. The ice shooting through his veins succeeds in freezing Lance in place, trapping him in this hell handcrafted just for him, no doubt by the too tall and too pretty embodiment of lizard-satan himself.

The men begin to hum, and the fact Lance recognizes the tune only fills him with more dread.

"L, tells me Lotor, loves you, my dear," the shortest begins, confirming Lance's fear that Lotor is seriously about to ruin one of his favourite love songs, here, in his place of work, where people are already whipping out their phones to record this trainwreck. He’s starting to feel a little deja vu here.

"O, is you’re the only one, that’s clear," the tallest continues, and Lance wishes wholeheartedly that the guitar from last week had actually killed him.

"V, is vehemently, pining- for lance-y." He can hear the third man's struggle to work the words into the tune -- Lotor is probably the one that wrote this shit, isn’t he? Lance feels sick to his stomach, but out of some kind of deep-seated self-hatred, he stands and listens.

"E, is ever more, that guitar will be no more." Actual tears are forming in his eyes, the utter embarrassment burning every single atom in his body as he accepts the fact that today is the day he dies.

"And love is all that he can give to you.” They're all singing now, loud and proud, making sure that no ear will go on without hearing this monstrosity today.

“Love, is all he’ll ever want, from you." This has to be some glitch in the Matrix or something. There’s no way this is something that’s happening to him in real life.

"Lance! Your love can make him." Fuck his life.

"Take his heart but please don’t break him." Oh, he'll break something alright.

"Love, was made for Lotor and you~" The men end with a royal flush of jazz hands, parting in the center to make way for — speak of the devil — Lotor himself, a large bouquet in hand and already being presented to Lance as if this hasn't been one of the most mortifying experiences of his short, tragic life.

“Roses, my sweet. One for every day that I’ve been enamoured by your beauty.” The words drip off his tongue like honey and Lotor grins at him, a sickeningly handsome smile just oozing confidence and flourish. He probably thinks he's the slickest motherfucker that’s ever lived, and Lance has never wanted to karate kick anyone more than he does right now.

Aside from the cursed barbershop quartet’s slightly laboured breathing, the shop is completely silent, and Lance is vaguely comforted by the fact it lasts long enough for Lotor’s outstretched arm to shake a little. Luckily and predictably, the gods seem to smile upon Lance right after he’s already suffered through the world’s shittiest mini-pantomime, limbs coming back to life as if out of pure spite.

“It’s time for my break,” Lance announces, surprisingly calm and muted all things considered, which shocks himself and the few people that know him in the store.

Turning on his heel, Lance aggressively tunes out the murmurs in the shop behind him, tugging his apron so hard over his head and onto the hook, he worries for a second that it’ll rip. He’s practically vibrating, a cocktail of anger and embarrassment stirring up his insides like Hunk stirs his bisque, or gazpacho—or whatever other complicated, pretentious names Lance suspects that he's made up on the spot for the many different recipes he's experimented with in their kitchen.

Lance is furious, he wants to run away, he wants to delete himself from this planet and start again, because once more he’s found himself featured in another horrifying situation, something that’s been recorded and archived for all the sickos who get off on other people’s humiliation, and it’s all thanks to Lotor — _again._

Before he can run back towards the counter and leapfrog over it to throttle that prissy pretty boy prince, a hand is clasped on his shoulder, anchoring him in place and stealing away any chance for Lance to let this be the last people hear of him, his last mark on the world before he becomes a forest hermit that kids will tell ghost stories about.

It’s Coran’s concerned blue eyes that meet Lance’s when he turns to face his half-hearted captor, one thick, ginger eyebrow raised in rightful confusion for what the fuck just happened in his shop.

“So, um… Who was that?” the man asks carefully, and Lance has to resist heaving out a loud and frustrated breath, lest his boss think it were directed at him and not the caviar-guzzling swamp creature that slaughtered a song so bad that even Nat King Cole is feeling it in the afterlife.

“Just some jackass who’s been pestering me for, like, weeks now,” Lance spits, crossing his arms over his chest like the petulant child he definitely isn’t. He knows Coran probably won’t fire him over this mess, but he simmers at the knowledge that, if he had a boss that wasn’t like a wacky uncle from New Zealand, Lotor could have lost him his job with that stunt. “This isn’t the first time he’s pulled something like this.”

Coran’s eyebrows furrow at that, his hand finally releasing Lance’s shoulder in favour of curling his bushy moustache around his finger, just like the cartoon character Lance knows he was in a past life.

“Well, it had better not happen in here again! I have a business to run, and I can’t let it be disturbed with what goes on in your personal life. Do try not to bring a show like that with you into work next time.” Coran wags his finger in what should be a scolding manner, but the guy’s never been able to pull off anything more than fatherly disappointment. Lance realises Coran doesn’t deserve it, but the anger from earlier rises up nonetheless.

“It’s not like I asked him to do this kind of thing! Last week, _he hit me with his guitar_ after trying to _‘serenade’_ me in the campus quad, in front of _everyone_! And before that, he pretty much jumped me after work, scaring me half to death after lurking around the shop for days, just to give me a creepy thesaurus disguised as a love letter!” He’s definitely speaking louder than he should be in the employee break room, and he knows it’s entirely possible that anyone trying to listen in the front of the store wouldn’t have a hard time hearing it — but that doesn’t stop him from yelling it all the same, hands flying around at lightning speed in a feeble attempt to express the millions of outraged thoughts zooming around his mind.

“The first time I met him, he stole my seat in calc and then pulled some shitty pick up line out of his ass to embarrass me in front of the whole class! He’s basically been stalking me from day _one_!” Lance finishes, red faced and out of breath, completely ready to absorb what should undoubtedly be a flurry of worry and praise for putting up with this bullshit without kicking something yet.

Coran, for all it’s worth, doesn’t even blink at his outburst. Instead, the corners of his mustache lift up high in what Lance knows to be a smile, his eyes twinkling with some _‘secret elderly knowledge’_ that Lance could never hope to understand, but he does know that he already hates whatever it is.

“Ahh, I see... You’re in the middle of a good old fashioned courtship! Congratulations, my boy, I always knew a handsome lad like you would have someone vying for his attention in no time!” Coran cheers, patting Lance on the back hard enough to knock him forward and punch the breath out him. “But like I said before, keep it outside of the workplace — love is a private matter, after all!”

And, yep, Lance is once more cursed with another acquaintance that doesn’t quite comprehend how dire his situation truly is. Such is the way of life.

“Whatever, I’ll try and tell him to stay away from here. Can I please just…go home for today?” he asks, hoping that if he looks as pathetic as he feels, it’ll at least garner enough sympathy from Coran to let him leave and bury his head in his pillows, hide away from all the mocking texts and dumb jokes he’s undoubtedly going to get as soon as his friends get their grubby little hands on the latest video.

He almost cries when - the beautiful, merciful, blessing of a man - Coran nods after a slight pause, ruffling his hair a little and reminding him that he’s on lock up duty tomorrow and Friday as payment for the early leave. Lance wastes no time in clocking out, grabbing his bag, and practically skipping towards the back exit. He decides that, despite the smell of hot garbage that sticks to his clothes for a bit every time he does it, it’s worth it to use the back door just to avoid the other bag of hot garbage waiting by the front.

Speaking of — in his vigor to run away from all his problems, as soon as Lance steps out the door, he trips, toppling straight into the arms of King Trash himself, the stench of expensive and woody cologne filling his nostrils in a harsh wave.

“Ah, are you okay?” asks Lotor, in that disgustingly deep and attractive voice of his, the worry filling his tone and flickering over his eyes sending shivers of revulsion down Lance’s spine. Yeah, definitely revulsion.

“What the hell!” Lance near screeches, shoving away violently from the toned arms keeping him steady. One of them immediately raises back up to present the bouquet from before. Lance seriously cannot catch a break.

“I’m sorry, I had no intention to frighten you like this. Please, just— accept these flowers, I wrote you another letter—”

“I don’t _want_ your stupid letter!” He slaps the bouquet away from his face, stepping forward and straight into Lotor’s space. “Seriously, man, what the fuck do you want from me?! You’ve been all up in my business for _weeks_!”

Lotor flinches back at Lance’s outburst, but it only lasts a second before panic flashes in his eyes as he scrambles together a response good enough to quell Lance’s rage. He just wants to go home and beg Hunk to make garlic knots in _peace._

“I-I want _you_ —”

This only fans the flames behind Lance’s glare. “Stop messing around! I don’t know what kind of game you’re trying to play but—”

“I assure you I am not messing around!” Lotor interrupts rapidly, all the meekness from before seeming to have vanished, replaced with a determined desperation and a passionate stare. “I have never felt for anyone the way I do for you, you’ve had my heart since the moment I saw your shining beauty! All I wish is to one day make you feel as happy as I do at the mere mention of your name!”

That certainly shuts Lance up for a moment. Lotor takes his silence as a cue to continue, voice softer and more…. Heartfelt?

“The first time I laid eyes on you, you were laughing in the corridor with your friends over some joke I couldn’t hear. I know you may think me foolish for letting myself become so enraptured by such a miniscule moment, but my heart has never beat so hard in my life, when I look into your eyes. I want to make you smile, and laugh— I want to be the cause of such a heavenly sight, I want the chance to make you happy…”

Lotor takes in a deep huff of air, and Lance is stuck once more, lost for words and staring dumbly at the man before him.

 

 

The bouquet is pushed into his chest again, gently, because apparently this guy really can’t live in a world where Lance isn’t in ownership of these flowers— But he takes them this time, cradles them carefully in his arms on instinct alone.

For a moment - a short, vulnerable moment, hidden between the tall buildings and overflowing trash surrounding them - Lance believes the words spilling from Lotor’s mouth. Believes that, maybe, this is the particular universe where someone like Lotor — so high up in his ivory tower, drinking champagne and eating gold-infused poptarts — could really love someone like Lance, the regular poptart-eating chump that he is. He so nearly trusts the crack in Lotor’s voice, the earnest dip of his brows, the hope swimming in those blue pools he calls eyes. Almost falls victim to his own pathetic desire to believe that he’s worthy of something like this, that he’s allowed to think it’s anything but a joke because he’s worth an elite man like Lotor.

Almost.

But Lance knows better than that. He’s known people like Lotor, he’s read those books before. He knows better than to think anyone so pristine and perfect, so flawless and untouchable, could ever honestly love him.

With a deep, frustrated sigh, Lance grips the flowers tight, scowls deeply, and points a harsh and warning finger in Lotor’s face.

“Stop harassing me at work,” he growls, and promptly swivels around on the balls of his feet to march his way home, flowers still gripped tightly in his fist.

It’s only when he does arrive at his and Hunk’s shared apartment that he lets them go, tossing them on the nearest table as he kicks the door shut. Its hinges groan loudly, even after the initial slam, and Lance is made aware that Hunk isn’t back yet, if the distinct lack of _‘stop slamming the door!’_  being yelled from somewhere in the tiny living space is anything to go by.

His friend will no doubt be surprised to find there’s no Lance to be picked up back at _Quizsnacks_ , but Lance doesn’t bother to shoot him a text, too emotionally exhausted from the whole ordeal earlier to even consider communicating with another human being right now.

Instead, he lazily kicks off his shoes, nudges them somewhere vaguely in the direction of the doorway — which he’ll definitely be scolded for later — and flops down face first into their dusty old couch, still covered in crumbs from their last movie night. Ah yes, the old girl has cradled his face like this many a time, the too-rough suede material rubbing dirt into his pores just the way he likes it.

When Lance turns his head to the side (because he’s not sure asphyxiation by dust bunnies is really how he wants to go), he notices a pretty pink envelope that seems to have fluttered to the ground from the table, along with a few stray rose petals and leaves.

A scowl immediately consumes his expression, but he stretches out a limp arm to grab the note nonetheless.

The back has nothing but his name written on it, in a now familiarly infuriating cursive text, with the additional decor of a few cutesy stickers that have no business being on anything received from a stud like Lotor. Lance is nearly foolish enough to think it’s kind of endearing, but luckily, he’s very good at pretending thoughts like that never happened.

Lance knows that whatever he finds in the envelope will likely do nothing but anger him. He can tell that it's been sprayed with a sickly sweet and feminine perfume—and why does Lotor even have perfume?! He knows reading it will suck up the last of his limited energy supply, because he’ll have no choice but to spend it all being fanatically repulsed. He knows it’ll end up intruding on the phone call he was planning to have with his mom after work, just like the last two have.

 

Lance knows all this, and yet, his overbearing nosiness forces him to slip his thumb under the flap and open it anyway.

_To my most treasured masterpiece, Lance,_

_Though my numerous attempts to capture your endearments thus far have failed, my yearning for you has wavered none._

_For each day that passes, my heart beats to a new melody for you; one of awe and adulation for the pulchritudinous nature of your features. A harmonization thumping in my chest, resonating through my very soul — all for the enjoyment of you, if only you would bestow upon my heart the chance to perform for yours._

_“_ _le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point”_ _\- Blaise Pascal._

_“The heart has its reasons that reason doesn't know,” a quote I feel echoes the circumstance of my adoration; an intense and fiery passion, one that makes little sense to those who don’t perceive it themselves, but triumphs in carrying me through my peregrination to obtain your love._

_I cannot give you just a single reason as to why fate has intransigently decided with indurated insistence that I am meant only for you, for it is a Brobdingnagian and innumerous list, but I dream there will come a day in which you cognize that destiny has brought us together._

_My sky was a desolate void before you, whereas now it is littered with flickers of light, each one representative of every moment I spend entrapped in your web of grandeur._

_For now, I can only beseech you to consider responding to my affections, and I shall wait in eager anticipation, seated behind the throne you rightfully claimed the first time I was so fortunate as to have met your stunning sapphire orbs._

_With endless and eternal love,_

_Lotor_

 

“Jesus Christ,” Lance breathes, baffled at the notion that a real life human being could conjure up something so outrageously pretentious. He doesn’t even know what half these words actually mean! It’s like every letter that’s been given to him is made to be more nonsensical than the last, and it pisses Lance off to no end.

This letter makes him angry. This situation makes him angry. This garbage man sewer rat fresh from the deepest pits of Shrek’s swamp, makes him angry. He scrunches the letter in his fist, infuriated to have been stupid enough to read it, burying his face in the crusty cushion yet again.

Because the thing that really, truly, makes him angry…

Is the rosy red tinge dusting his cheeks.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm Googleyeseyes123 (Mai for short) and I'm not a writer :^) This is the first,,, real fic chapter I've ever written, and all I've done before were 1 or 2 one shots, so I hope I kept up with the Quality that came before me :'^) 
> 
> I'm not usually a fan of Lancelot, but this fic is the kind of Lancelot that people who don't like Lancelot would enjoy, and I can account for that!! It's of course, all thanks to our resident Angel, Traffy, for blessing us with one of her many perfect ideas. Next chapter is by epi and I promise it's very good and equally as embarrassing as all of these chapters have been so far.
> 
> The STUNNING art for this chapter was done by yet another angel in our midst, [4everbacon](https://twitter.com/4everbacon?lang=en)! Please give her many snaps, I watched her bring it to life and it was Mesmerizing.
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and will stay tuned for more good times to come!


	4. With Your Smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Traffy, I want you to know that even though Mai makes fun of me for my chapter being just slightly shorter than the rest, studies show that WLL chapter word counts are actually inversely proportional to how much their writer loves you
> 
> Thank you for always being such a pal <3 <3 <3

Lotor gives his notebook another glum glance. The scrawled word _Genesis_ mocks him from the top line, a relic from a more optimistic time. A simpler time.

To think that he really believed when he took these notes down, his pen scratching against the paper in the highest excitement, that this would be the path to the star that shines at the center of his solar system and spreads its light and joy unto all his life. That following these simple directions might grant him the gilded key to Lance’s gorgeous but elusive heart. That the shining sapphires of Lance’s eyes and the gleaming bronze of his skin, more valuable than any earthly treasure, could be within his grasp.

He should be writing this down too. This is prime material for his next letter.

The café around him is bustling with students studying for their exams, but Lotor can’t imagine even so much as glancing at a textbook right now. For the first time in his life, there is work to be done that’s far more important than appeasing a professor or coming up with the perfect answer to his midterm’s essay questions. He knows he’s going to get all A’s anyway, thanks to the long years at his prestigious and stringent boarding schools. His priorities lay elsewhere.

He skims over the notebook page again, wondering what could have possibly gone wrong in his past two attempts. He followed Allura’s instructions to a T, and Allura is the _expert_. When his meticulously-planned serenade had turned into an accidental warzone, she had taken the time to sit down with him and rework his strategy. He’d been absolutely sure that the singing quartet, complete with the lovingly-written lyrics that he’d spent three consecutive all-nighters perfecting, would be the thing to win Lance over. But apparently even the flowers had failed, given Lance’s lack of response. Allura had promised him that no one could resist the romantic pull of red roses, and yet Lotor still remained Lance-less.

It’s almost enough to lose hope. The harsh pain of Lance turning away from him has transformed from a smarting sting to a throb deep in his chest. Lotor can still clearly picture the expression Lance had worn when Lotor had handed him the flowers behind _Quizsnacks_ . They were not the lovestruck eyes of someone falling hopelessly into their warm, gooey feelings. No, Lance had looked _upset_. The thought of that drives daggers through Lotor’s very soul.

Despite Lotor’s best efforts, Lance still hasn’t contacted him. Lance avoids eye contact in class and in the halls. Lance has never once smiled at him.

It’s Lotor’s own fault though, really. Perhaps he just hasn’t been trying hard enough. Hasn’t yet proven his worth to someone as genuine and popular as Lance. Maybe the letters haven’t been flowery enough. The guitar disaster was probably a strike against him, too. And the barbershop quartet…what was it that Lance had said again?

_“Stop harassing me at work.”_

So, Lance doesn’t like to be distracted from his job. That’s commendable. Lotor likes a man with a strong work ethic. No wonder Lance had been so cold to him whenever Lotor had shown up during his shift at _Quizsnacks_. No matter. Lotor can merely find other places to display his affection for Lance, places where Lance can feel more comfortable receiving and returning it.

Maybe what he needs, Lotor thinks, is another opinion. A new ally. Allura is not bringing him any closer to his goals, so it’s time to discard her. He needs someone who won’t steer him to heartbreak. Someone knowledgeable. Someone in a position of power. Someone willing to guide his aching heart on its next steps as he yearns for the azure-eyed, cocoa-haired beauty of his dreams.

And then it comes to him. The miracle delivered in his hour of need. It shuffles through the café door in the form of a short, messy-haired young woman clutching a reusable coffee mug and looking like she hasn’t slept in a week.

She is heaven-sent.

Lotor leaps to his feet and waits for her to finish ordering at the counter before approaching her where she waits for her drink.

“Hello Pidge,” he says.

The girl turns and squints at him from behind large, round glasses. “Do I know you?”

Lotor is slightly amazed that she’s already forgotten the calamity surrounding their first meeting, but he opens his mouth to introduce himself anyway. He doesn’t get that far, because her eyes are suddenly widening in dawning realization.

“Oh!” she says. “You’re Lance’s stalker!”

Lotor takes a half step back. “Stalker?”

She waves a hand at him, dismissing her own words. “Lotor, right? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Really? From whom?”

Pidge snorts a laugh. “Who else?”

That can’t be implying what Lotor thinks it is. Does Lance…talk about him? To other people? What does he say? Is he secretly pining as hard for Lotor as Lotor is for him? Does he tell his friends the feelings that live in his heart that he’s too shy to show Lotor outright?

Before he can allow this avalanche of inquiries to come tumbling out of his mouth, the barista calls Pidge’s name and she goes to retrieve her drink. She fusses with it, pouring in milk and a frankly absurd amount of sugar, before turning back around. She stops short when she sees Lotor still behind her.

“Did you need something?” she asks.

“Yes,” Lotor replies. “Could we possibly discuss a matter of great importance?”

Her eyes narrow, but she shrugs her acquiescence before following Lotor to his table. She eyes his notebook warily as she sits, and for a second Lotor feels the urge to snap it shut, but she’s about to find out its contents anyway. There’s no use in hiding it, and it’s not as though he’s ashamed of the way he feels.

“So,” Pidge says. Somehow in between the counter and the table she’s already chugged half of her coffee.

“So,” Lotor replies. “I need your help again.”

“Is it another letter?” Pidge asks. “I’m not a postal worker.”

“No, nothing like that,” Lotor replies. “I’m actually seeking some advice.”

“Advice?”

“Yes.” Lotor heaves a sigh. He looks out the window, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. It’s a beautiful day, but for how he feels inside it might as well be pouring rain. “As you may already know, my efforts so far in showing Lance my feelings for him have not yet been successful.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” Pidge says with a laugh.

He ignores the derision in her tone in favor of sighing again. “I need help from someone who knows his heart better than I do. I don’t know how to get through to him.” He returns his gaze to Pidge, whose face is impassive but twitching at the corners of her mouth. “Help me, Pidge. Tell me what I can do to gain his feelings.”

Pidge splutters into a cough, hiding her mouth behind her hand. Lotor muses briefly on how strange it is that people’s coughs sound like laughter sometimes before returning his attention to the matter at hand as Pidge recovers.

“I wouldn’t say I know Lance’s heart, or that I would even _want_ to know Lance’s heart.” Pidge makes a face. “ _Buuuut_ I might have an idea or two.”

Lotor feels hope and excitement shoot through him. He leans forward towards her. “Yes?”

“Yeah.” Pidge leans back in her chair, crosses her arms, and grins at Lotor with a gleam in her eyes. “So, there’s this movie that Lance really likes….”

* * *

 

Lotor runs through his mental checklist one last time. Letter painstakingly written in gold pen on stationery ordered directly from a high-end paper company? Check. Mixtape containing all of the most romantic songs Lotor could possibly think of? Check. Boombox borrowed from Allura? Check.

Unwavering admiration for Lance? Check, check, check.

Everything is ready. Everything has been set perfectly into place. And yet Lotor can’t help his hands from trembling as he pops open the boombox and sets his CD inside. He doesn’t have a good track record with this kind of thing, and although he’s switched advisers, he can’t help but feel nervous that history might repeat itself. That he might have to once again hear a rejection from Lance’s mouth, that he might have to weather the brutal humiliation of Lance seeing him fail again.

He takes a deep breath and hefts the boombox into his arms.

He knows which window of this apartment building is Lance’s. He’d confirmed it twice with Pidge. And when he’d asked her if it was strange to be visiting his apartment when he’d never been invited there, she’d just laughed and replied, “Isn’t it a little late to be worried about coming off as creepy?”

Whatever that means.

So now Lotor stands beneath Lance’s bedroom window, the boombox in his hands, ready to hit the sparkly pink play button. The play button is sparkly and pink because as it so happens, this is the year 2018 and Lotor does not own a boombox of his own. No, the owner of this particular bit of machinery and glittery rose-colored plastic is Allura, the only person Lotor knows who is wistful enough about the good old days to not only hold on to a piece of technology she had purchased in 1999, but to still use it regularly. When Lotor had found himself in a dearth, an absolute _drought_ , of boomboxes, she had rushed to his aid with her Barbie brand combination CD/cassette player.

It’s not exactly like the movie. But it plays Lotor’s CD loud and proud for everyone to hear. So it will suffice.

And now it is time. It’s time to finally, once and for all, capture the beautiful Lance’s attention.

The soft light of dawn is just beginning to touch the street as Lotor hits the play button. The slumbering college town is silent as he dials the volume up as high as it can go. The first notes of the first song he handpicked for this playlist float into the air, carrying his emotions with them. He spent hours slaving away over YouTube and iTunes to gather only the greatest love songs most representative of his feelings towards Lance. He arranged and rearranged the song list so many times, trying to find the perfect transitions that will show Lance how much he truly cares.

The song builds and fills the space around the apartment building, echoing along the quiet streets. Any moment now, Lance will appear in the window before him, open it, and realize that all of his romantic fantasies have materialized in the form of one young man holding a Barbie boombox.

Slowly, the stillness begins to break. A nearby window on the first floor slams shut, but Lotor has no attention to spare on such a thing. Curtains flutter in others, which is good. This declaration should be as public as all of Lotor’s previous attempts. The more people watching this happen, the better. Lance is a show-off. Lance loves spectacles. He loves the limelight, he loves being the center of attention. Or so Lotor has heard. And Lotor will prove that he can provide to Lance the things he loves. He’ll have the whole complex watching before this is over, in the same way he had the entire quad as audience to his guitar performance, and the whole store tuned in when the lyrics he wrote were sung to Lance. And Lance will bask in it, and find Lotor all the more attractive for it.

Lotor is focused on one window and one window only, though. The one directly above him, the one through which Lance’s face will appear any moment now like the sun peeking over the horizon. He can’t see much through it, so he can’t tell what kind of bedroom Lance keeps, or what kind of curtains he has. But he can see the stirring of movement in it. Anticipation thunders through him.

The curtains part.

The window pane slides up.

A figure appears.

Lotor smiles in preparation, ready to feel their eyes lock, ready for a connection to flow between them. He looks up into Lance’s face, feeling happiness already spreading through him.

It’s not Lance.

Whoever this girl is, it’s not someone that Lotor knows. They both seem to realize that in the same moment as she stares down at him in confusion. She’s clearly in her pajamas and her hair is in disarray, and as Lotor watches she mouths, “What the fuck?”

Lotor jerks his head side to side, counting the windows in a panic. Pidge had said Lance’s was the second from the right on the south side of the building, right? Unless…had it been second from the _left_? Lotor had written it down and read it over dozens of times, but what if he had written down the wrong thing? Memorized it wrong? What if Pidge had made a mistake? Is this even Lance’s building?

But just as Lotor is looking frantically around, his eyes catch on the window three down that’s opening. A familiar brown-haired head pokes out, scanning the area for what the disturbance might be.

Lotor nearly trips in his rush to get below him. He sprints over to that window, his boombox still held aloft, still playing music. Maybe he’d been wrong, but when it counts, when it really means something, he’s in the right place. He stands up straight and directs his music towards Lance.

And for a moment, for a brief, magical moment, Lance meets Lotor’s eyes. Lotor says nothing, but continues to smile calmly up at Lance while watching for his reaction. It comes, to Lotor’s joy, in the form of his cheeks changing color, turning an attractive rosy red. He’s blinking in surprise, his mouth in a rare, speechless _‘o’_ as he looks down upon Lotor.

The blush on his face doesn’t fade even as the first song does, dying out into silence to make way for the next one. Lotor lets it go on so he can preserve this fantastical moment forever, so much like something out of his best dreams. Lance’s eyes are such a beautiful blue in the morning light, his hair sticking up on one side where he was probably sleeping on it, and he’s looking at Lotor for once not with annoyance or disgust but genuine flustered surprise.

Here, in the space between songs, Lotor knows he’s done it. He’s finally achieved his goal. His heart flutters in happiness. He’s gained Lance’s affection.

“ _MY ANACONDA DON’T, MY ANACONDA DON’T—_ ”

Lotor fumbles the boombox in shock. It slips through his hands and nearly hits him on the head before he can grab it in his arms again. He scrambles to press the pause button but his fingers are clumsy with panic. Ms. Minaj’s voice is splitting the air, disturbing the harmonious peace of the moment before.

What happened? Where is his perfect playlist? He finally manages to pause the song, but not before realizing that something terrible occurred here. As much as he loves and respects this absolute jam, it is not one of the anthems of love he picked out to grace Lance’s ears this morning.

He opens the player and frowns. The disc spinning inside certainly _looks_ like the one he burned last night. He pulls out his phone and thumbs through his playlists, synced from his computer. Everything _seems_ fine, all the titles are in order, until he recalls that he pulled many of these songs from a CD that Allura had burned him and he’d manually put in the song titles himself. Lo and behold, when he taps the title of the second song on his phone, it’s not Elvis Presley’s advertised crooning that comes out of his phone speakers but the dulcet tones of _Anaconda_.

Either he accidentally mislabeled the song or Allura did, but there’s time to figure that out later. For now, he has to return to his task of Lance-wooing. He hits the skip track button and raises the boombox above his head again, only to see something blue flying towards him through the air. The sole of a fuzzy slipper hits him square in the face and then tumbles tragically to the ground.

“What are you doing here?” Lance shouts from his window.

Even from down here, Lotor can tell that he’s trembling, his left hand bunched in a fist and his right drawn behind his head and ready to launch his first projectile’s twin down at him. Lance looks angry now, but Lotor recalls the soft expression on his face from just seconds ago. The day isn’t lost yet.

“Lance, my dear,” Lotor calls up, ignoring the stinging of his forehead. “Please forgive me for our most recent meeting. I wasn’t aware of how much your workplace meant to you, and how much you desire it to be free of distraction! I won’t approach you there again.”

“You’d better not!” Lance says, though he hasn’t lowered his poised hand.

“You have my word,” Lotor promises. “Now if you’ll do me the favor of coming down here, or letting me up, I have a letter I should like to deliver into your elegant hands!”

Lance’s reaction is violent and immediate. “No!  No more letters!” he practically shrieks. “How did you even find my apartment?”

Lotor, confused by the vehemence of his refusal, frowns. This isn’t going as he expected. This was supposed to be pure romance, a tender scene from a movie that Lance loves, sure to have Lance swooning into Lotor’s arms. Or at least smiling at him. “Your friend Pidge told me.”

“Pidge?” Lance jerks back, his eyes wide. Then his brow furrows. “I’m gonna have some words for her later.”

“Don’t be angry with her!” Lotor says, vaguely concerned for his generous accomplice. “It was only because I asked! I wanted to show you again what a gracious suitor I can be.”

“A gracious…oh my god.” Lance sighs and puts his face in his hands. In the next second, he picks back up, that mystifying anger once again in his eyes. “Look, dude. I don’t know why you picked me out of all the people on this campus, why you’ve decided to make my life specifically a living hell, but cut it out!”

“A living hell?” Lotor replies, feeling his stomach sink. His heart is aching in his chest. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Is this about the Barbie boombox? “Lance, I only mean to give you pleasurable and romantic experiences! I do this out of my feelings for you. Please consider them.”

Lance rolls his eyes, dramatic enough that Lotor can even see it from here. The dismissal feels like a blow to his chest.

“Lotor, _go away_ !” Lance says. “You’re so annoying! Seriously, the _worst_!”

“Lance, I—!”

“I hate you! I don’t want to see you ever again!”

Lotor’s lungs are collapsing inside of his ribcage. His heart wants to give out and never beat again. Lance doesn’t want to see him. Not today, not now, not _ever_. Maybe it was the incident with the guitar that made him so revolted by Lotor, or the fact that Lotor hung around his work so much, or even today’s mixtape mix-up. Maybe it’s just some fundamental disconnect, the same one that Lotor has with everyone else in his life. But no matter what it is, Lotor has failed.

He takes a look up at Lance, who is glaring down at him. He’s beautiful, but he’s completely beyond Lotor’s grasp. Lotor will never know what it’s like to be cared for by a boy like that. He’ll never understand the affection that he can show his friends, the easy way that they can laugh at each other’s jokes and teasing. He’ll never know what it’s like to get a warm smile from those perfect lips, to see that joyful face light up at the sight of him as though Lance has wanted to see Lotor just as much as Lotor has been wanting to see him.

Lance hates him. Lance hates him, and Lotor will never know his warmth.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Lotor turns around. Standing there is a man wearing a campus police uniform and a stern frown. Instinctively, Lotor lowers his arms and cradles the boombox to his shattered chest.

“Good morning, officer,” he greets with the best smile he can muster right now.

The cop doesn’t return it.

“Yeah, I’m going to have to ask you to turn that off and leave these premises,” he says instead. “We’ve gotten three calls about you. Noise complaints.”

Lotor, for the second time this morning, slams down the pause button. The street goes uncomfortably quiet except for the chittering of a nearby bird.

The officer stares Lotor down, and then jerks his head towards the sidewalk in a clear message of, _Move, before I make you_. Then he turns himself and ambles towards the street, expecting Lotor to follow after him.

Instead, Lotor looks around. He can’t bear to look up at Lance’s window again, but he does catch sight of the tenants’ mailboxes. This one last thing. This one last thing and then he’ll concede defeat. He quickly darts over to the boxes and scans the labeled names. He zeroes in on Lance’s, grabs the letter from his pocket, and shoves it through the slot.

“Stop dawdling,” the cop calls. “I said get out of here.”

“Yes, officer,” Lotor replies, and with a monumental effort, he straightens his shoulders and tries not to drag his feet as he totes the now-silent Barbie boombox down the street towards home.

And when Lance opens his mailbox later, when he finds the pink envelope that Lotor has carefully tucked the note into, when he opens it and reads it, this is what it will say:

_To my dearest Lance,_

_Although your resplendent and exquisite self already has been apprised of my sempiternal and unceasing yearning for you, I find myself again inundated with the appetency to pen you a letter on the subject. You see, my velvet-petaled flower, the cynosure of my life, each time I lay my eyes upon your sublime smile I am seized once again with longing. Although you remain blind to my passion, I am hopeful that this letter will be the one that permits you to open your lambent mind to it._

_“L’amour fait les plus grandes douceurs et les plus sensibles infortunes de la vie,” said Madeleine de Scudery. “Love makes the greatest pleasures and most sensitive misfortunes of life.” This, as I have experienced, is true. Every day without you at my side is an unendurable misfortune, and yet, each time your effulgent eyes give me even the slightest oeillade, I feel myself filled with consummate joy._

_Like the powerful rhinoceroses that stampede over the plains of eastern Africa, my heart thunders in my chest at the mere cogitation of experiencing your presence in my vicinity. Each morning I awake perpending the possibility of our fates and our decisions causing our paths to cross, in the prospect that you may turn your fulgent smile in my direction._

_We are like the opposing teeth on the zipper of my Armani slacks, and love is the pull that will draw us together and interfuse us. You, who shines with the radiance of an iPhone screen in the middle of a dark night. Please, in your excessive benevolence, consider my feelings!_

_With interminable love,_

_Lotor_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for making it this far! Epi here :) I hope you cringed half as much reading this chapter as I did writing it. I never imagined myself writing a fic like this tbh, but when I say I would do anything for Traffy I mean it
> 
> We’re taking a break from updating next week for the new season, but the week after that we’ve got Moth again! She’s got something real beautiful for you so stay tuned!
> 
> The art for this chapter was drawn by the amazing [Muzuki](https://solivagaunt.tumblr.com/)!


	5. Your Laugh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hola! Moth here in spirit! I’ve been doing the very strenuous and tedious work of moving from one state to another since last weekend, so unfortunately I wasn’t totally available to post this chapter. But [Mai](http://bluest-paladin.tumblr.com/) is an angel, and she agreed to post this chapter for me while I’m away, like… moving boxes and sweating my ass off. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this one! It’s the final chapter of this collab from me, personally, but I can tell you from very much experience that the ones following are so, so much better. 
> 
> As always, thanks so much for reading!

Lance is at a party.

He’s at a party at a big house—too big, he thinks, for just one person to be living here. He’s sitting at the side of a gigantic, oval-shaped pool. He’s watching the reflection of the water against the lights along the sides, slumped forward with his elbows on his knees, sitting as far away from the rest of the crowd as he can possibly manage on a lawn chair, nursing his drink in the stereotypical red plastic solo cup.

He’d promised himself that he wouldn’t drink any alcohol tonight. He needs to stay vigilant, after all.

Because this disgusting display of extravagant wealth, this obscenely large mansion in the middle of such a tiny, unassuming town—this whole stupid party and all of these flashy, snobby people who he isn’t even sure if they’re from around here—they’re all because of one person.

And if he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t even know why he came.

He’d left his apartment this morning with the intention of having a serene, peaceful, quiet, and uneventful day. He’d said goodbye to Hunk after a hearty breakfast, made his way down the stairs and apologized to his landlord on the way out when she’d stopped him to ask if “that weirdo” had been spotted lurking around the complex anymore.

He’d reassured her that, no, nothing out of the ordinary has happened lately. Things have been suspiciously quiet since he finally managed to drill the first refusal into Lotor’s thick skull, since he’d started stalking him nearly two months ago.

He can’t say that he’s completely relieved about that either, as much as the mere thought of something so ludicrous makes his stomach turn in disgust. But he’s been looking over his shoulder, stealing little peeks of Lotor in class. He’s been keeping a diligent eye on his surroundings, constantly on guard just in case some other humiliating depravity decides to hurl itself his way.

And he’s been surprised—disappointed, even, which makes him feel all the more mortified—that it truly does seem as though Lotor got the message loud and clear.

He hasn’t written any more letters. He hasn’t made any big scenes. He’s been quiet and kept to himself. He’s seemed normal, even, as though the last two months have somehow all been one big figment of Lance’s wild imagination.

He’d tried desperately to convince himself that he misses that terror because it seemed to have become such a permanent fixture in his life. It was reliable, after a while, that Lotor would keep chasing him. He’d continue coming up with new and creative ways to torture him, no matter how many times Lance rebuffed him.

He’d always be there, dependably, no matter what Lance might say or do in response to all of those embarrassing, outdated moves that he seriously thinks could win anyone over in this modern age.

And it’s been too long by now, for him to deny that maybe Hunk was right, and his mom was right, and everyone who’s been trying to convince him all along that perhaps Lotor just wanted to hit on him for some reason—they were all right.

He still doesn’t trust the guy, but he can’t keep telling himself that someone would be willing to humiliate themselves, right along with him, to such a painful degree just to get back at him somehow. He still isn’t entirely sure what Lotor wants from him. He still doesn’t know why he caught the guy’s eye. But too many things have happened already, too many agonizing weeks of unrelenting degradation have passed, for Lance to still find himself convinced that all of this is just a long con. Once Lance finally relents, Lotor might point and laugh at him for ever thinking that he’s worth such a rich asshole’s precious time.

Lotor doesn’t seem as though he’s hiding any devious plans. For the last week, he’s done nothing but keep his head low and totally avoid Lance when they aren’t in class together. Lance has noticed some of the pathetic, puppy dog looks that Lotor sends his way when he thinks that he can’t see him. He’s noticed that forlorn expression, the dramatic, theatrical sadness that pisses him off almost as much as it makes him feel guilty.

And this morning, he’d checked the mail after returning from his morning classes and noticed another letter tucked between the water and cable bills—in the same thick, pink envelope that he’s grown accustomed to.

He wishes that he could say that he was disgusted. He was horrified. He was ready to head straight to the campus security office and talk to one of the officers about getting some kind of campus-wide protection order.

He wishes that he could admit that he’d just thrown it away without reading it, that maybe he’d even shredded it and mailed Lotor the remains caked in the dog shit that it deserved. He wishes that the truth were anything but the disgraceful reality: that he’d shoved the rest of the mail back into the box, and ripped the stupid thing open the moment his mind wrapped itself around what exactly it was.

It had read, in the same loopy, artful calligraphy that he’s grown so accustomed to, in the same convoluted, pretentious prose that still hurts his brain to even begin trying to understand:

 

_ To my dearest, and most penitent love, _

_ I wholeheartedly respect your wishes not to be associated with the likes of me anymore. As much as it torments me to find myself so distant from the solitary sun of my barren, Stygian universe, I feel compelled to avow that I have went about this entire courtship in such a wholly reprehensible, lackadaisical, so perverse and gauche manner—and I cannot possibly fathom how an angelic, magnanimous being such as yourself could have conceivably found the equanimity to tolerate my presumptuous propositions. _

_ I apologize—now, and a thousand times more—for completely overstepping my boundaries in my perfervid pursuit of your affinity. You are your own person, with your own convictions and conceptualizations. You are an ethereal seraph, a being of inordinate pulchritude and everlasting grace. You have your own cogent, perhaps misguided, interpretations of what I desire from you, the elegance that I descry in you, and what I have so wished to burgeon from these floundering attempts thus far. _

_ I acknowledge that you perchance never want to encounter me again, but please, consider what I have written for you here and grant me permission to explain. _

_ I have organized an infinitesimal soirée at my home tonight, and I would be supremely honored if you could find the time to stop by and give me the opportunity to elucidate my motives, my intentions, and what has drawn me so desperately to you. _

_ If not, I will immediately call off all wooing undertakings. I give you my word that I will cease to contact you, from that moment, until the end of my feeble, broken-hearted existence. I pray that it will not resort to something so abysmal, but if that is what you desire, I will respect your wishes undoubtedly. _

_ And thus, my fate rests in your divine, compassionate hands. _

_ I hope to espy even the most minuscule glimpse of your magnificence tonight. _

_ With love, _

_ Lotor _

 

It had been just as insufferable as all of the others, just as borderline indecipherable. But underneath the parchment—under all of those loopy, masterfully written, grandiose, blood-boiling words—there had been another piece of paper. It was made of thicker material, an expensive card stock with an indented pattern of tiny fleur-de-lis at each corner. It was a single cream-colored card, with only  _ “You’re Invited” _ written on one side, and the address to what he’d assumed was Lotor’s lavish estate on the other.

And he’d weighed the possibilities then, pondered why he felt so compelled to go.

He’d wondered if maybe it was more of a slaughterhouse than some luxurious Hollywood McMansion. And he’d wondered if Lotor was just trying to lure him out there so he could finally get moving with that whole “chopping him up into little pieces” scheme that Lance still hasn’t completely disproven as his modus operandi.

But, for whatever reason, he’d felt guilty when he’d considered just standing Lotor up. When he’d thought about discarding the mere notion of continuing this cat and mouse—now that he’s finally come to terms with the fact that he could somehow be the mouse and the cat at the same time.

That he could somehow be Lotor’s helpless prey, seemingly unable to stop him, but still find himself capable of completely obliterating him emotionally if he just chooses the most aggressive words.

And perhaps that’s why he’d wanted to come here tonight, to Lotor’s stupid, boring party. Maybe that’s why he’d dressed himself up in his nicest, cleanest outfit, and even used his favorite product in his hair, his most expensive cologne sprayed over his throat and wrists in the most tasteful amount that he could manage.

Maybe that’s he’d made an effort to look good even though he knew that he’d still be outshined by any of Lotor’s fellow model friends, who seemed to shine brighter even than the blanket of stars overhead. Who seemed as though, without even trying, they were somehow more stunning than he could ever hope to be.

He doesn’t like thinking that he owes Lotor anything, even an explanation. But he doesn’t like thinking that he’s not a forgiving person either—that he’d completely discard a person who obviously wanted to do and be better, just because they might have fumbled awkwardly while getting to know him in the first place.

So he finds himself at this real snoozer of a “soirée”. He’d gotten himself something to drink, opted against the champagne in favor of punch. He’d marched himself in the nearest direction of peace and quiet—away from the partygoers who were already starting to send him funny looks. Away from the noise and the hustle and bustle. Away from any other awful thing that might make him regret coming here more than he already does.

And sitting here now, drinking mournfully un-spiked punch on the fringes of a party whose collective net worth could probably fund the tuition for everyone at his school three times or more, he can’t even begin to fathom why Lotor has spent so much time fruitlessly vying after his affections. It’s so evident that anyone else attending this get-together of his would be far more suited for such a polished, successful, and—Lance hates to admit it, and he does so with curiously hot cheeks—gorgeous guy.

Maybe the punch  _ is _ spiked, after all. Maybe he just doesn’t know himself as well as he thought that he did.

Or maybe it’s finally time to admit to himself that it _ is _ kind of flattering, having someone like Lotor following him around. That he’d enjoyed it, just a little bit, feeling like someone who was really worth working so hard to earn.

It should be offensive, really. He should be scandalized, considering that Lotor might think of him as nothing more than a prize to be won.

But now that he’s sitting here, with all of these pretty people—while he’s listening to the music thumping inside of Lotor’s beautiful house, watching the way that the water bounces white lines of sparkling light against the darkened concrete—he wonders if maybe he’s actually the one getting his hopes up here.

He wonders, with a surprisingly painful, wholly appalling pang of something hollow aching in his chest, if Lotor will someday learn to dial it back just enough that the two of them can have a normal conversation. And maybe, then, if Lotor will eventually realize how unimpressive, how absolutely mundane and mediocre he really is. And finally, after all of this stalking, all of the time that he’s wasted courting Lance, he’ll finally begin see what Lance has been struggling with all along:

They don’t belong together. They’re just two very, very different people.

Lotor, with his gold-infused poptarts. Lance, working as a cashier at the same dead end job every week just to afford the off-brand.

The two of them, existing in too-distant wavelengths—practically light years away, while Lotor isn’t nearly close enough to understand that the journey won’t be worth it when he finally discovers what his prize really is.

He shakes his head, raising his plastic solo cup to his lips and taking another short sip. He tips his head back then, once he takes a gulp, once he lowers the cup back down between his knees and wonders how long he’s willing to hang around here when Lotor still hasn’t made his grand appearance.

He wonders if anyone is thinking about asking him to leave, if they’re wondering why, surely, one of the “help” has taken it upon himself to kick back and spend his break among their perfect, pristine party.

It’s uncomfortable, being here now, feeling as though he’s nothing short of an incredibly unsightly speck of dust marring one of those gigantic, unstreaked windows pouring light out onto the tastefully landscaped, but obscenely large backyard. He feels on edge, fidgety and flighty. He feels as though even something as minuscule as a dirty look in his direction might send him flying home faster than it would take for him to set down his cup and just leave now, like a normal person probably would have half an hour ago.

But he stays, for whatever reason. He feels compelled, by forces that he doesn’t even entirely understand himself, and his own twisted, masochistic urge to see this terrible thing through to the end, to stay put. To wait for Lotor to finally make an appearance, and to hear out whatever inane reasoning he might have to back up all of his questionable behavior so far.

Lance pushes a long, heavy sigh through his nose. He slumps further back, until his shoulders hit the back of the patio chair. Until he’s expecting to be met with a blanket of more twinkling night sky, but instead he’s staring up into a twin pair of shadowed blue eyes, and that familiar sharp smile, angular cheekbones, and the handsome upturning of one perfectly manicured brow.

He’s so startled that his arms jerk upwards on their own, that he throws himself back into a seated position and reels around so jerkily, so suddenly, that he’s forced to watch in horror as his drink sloshes out of his solo cup and splatters over the chair, the concrete, and Lotor’s perfectly ironed white button up shirt.

His eyes are wide in horror. For an eternity of a moment, the two of them sit in this pregnant silence—Lance, too terrified to speak, Lotor, looking as though Lance might as well have punched him right in the nose.

Finally, after a thousand scattered heartbeats, after Lance lowers his weaponized cup and snaps his slack mouth opened and closed as noise simply refuses to form in the deep recesses of his suddenly sandpapery throat, Lotor is the one to break the silence.

“I—I’m very relieved that you’ve decided to come.”

It’s such a ludicrous response, given everything horrible that has happened within the span of the last minute and a half, that Lance can’t do anything but squawk a laugh, motioning with a rubbery, awkward arm at Lotor’s soiled shirt.

“Were you really craving a kool-aid shower?”

Lotor looks confused. Lance ponders for a split second if he even knows what kool-aid is.

But after another pause, Lotor brushes his hands over the unstained edges of his shirt, smoothing it down against his hips. This draws Lance’s attention to them, for a moment too long—draws his gaze to the subtle slope of Lotor’s lithe frame, how he seems as though he’s been sculpted from clay to be perfection incarnate, even if the picturesque exterior might not sync up completely with whatever sort of deranged monstrosity of a brain is rattling around in Lotor’s pretty little head.

Lotor’s voice is cracked, just long enough for the sound of it to jar Lance out of his thoughts. But he catches himself quickly, clears his throat, and tries to speak again as though he hadn’t stumbled at all.

“I understand that I startled you. This wasn’t your fault.” Lotor motions at himself in a wide, sweeping gesture of his arms. There’s the smallest hint of a smile on his lips, of color on his cheeks. “I’m immensely flattered that you actually cared enough to come.”

He’s rounding around Lance’s seat now, brushing his hand over the back edge of the matching chair right next to it.

“May I sit?” He asks, and Lance can only nod dumbly, snapping his gaze from Lotor’s relieved smile, just as the sight of it causes his heart to begin thundering urgently in his chest.

There’s no reason why this creep should be making him feel anything but absolute disgust. But he’s found, as time has passed without incident, that he’s started considering how flattered so much attention might have made him, had Lotor had any real tact about it at all.

He’d taken a lot of time to consider the intention, over the action itself. He’d wondered, feebly, if Shay would fall for Hunk, if she knew how hopelessly he’s been crushing on her all this time. If she had any way of understanding, despite how shy he is, that he’s been admiring her from afar, hoping that some magic miracle might materialize out of nothing, that might allow him to approach her without fumbling brainlessly with everything that he wants to say.

He wonders if Shay thinks that Hunk is weird, because he can’t ever talk to her without getting tongue tied, or if maybe Shay just understands people better than he does—that she’s honed some secret sixth sense of reading people’s intentions. That perhaps he’s the only person in the universe who’s ever judged someone so harshly just because they weren’t very good at love.

And he isn’t sure if Hunk is really comparable to Lotor. If maybe those are two very different, yet similarly bleak, situations. But it makes him wonder, at vulnerable times, like now, if maybe Lotor is just as lost, scrambling for attention and affection just like everyone else. And if maybe the sole chink in his proverbial armor is this one glaring flaw—that when someone doesn’t accept him immediately, for his charm and his wit and good looks, he doesn’t know how to go about approaching them without coming on entirely too strong.

He wonders if he’s overthinking this.

And he wonders if a snobby rich boy like Lotor could ever be so deep.

But before he can delve ever-deeper into the pits of this mental back-and-forth, Lotor has seated himself, turned halfway towards Lance and the pool, and begun to speak again.

“I promised that I would explain myself if you came here,” he says, his face turned towards Lance, but his eyes distant and glazed, staring off at something just above Lance’s shoulder, in the shadowed landscape beyond the pool that Lance is sure he couldn’t see even if he turned around, “So, if you would allow me to, I will make good on that promise.”

Lance’s affirming noise is pitiful, quiet. Lotor’s lips turn up slightly more at the edges, but the only other indication that he’s heard him at all is the fact that he presses on.

“It is true that for most of my life, I’ve been given every material possession that I’ve so desired. My father, the insufferable bastard, made sure that I was distracted enough with exclusive private schools, and summer camps—clubs and sports teams, and obscure lessons and extended vacations to varying cultures that might pique my interest and keep me out of his affairs. And my mother—”

His eyes sharpen. His jaw is tight. With clenched fists in his lap, with straight, tense shoulders, he breathes a shaky sigh and closes his eyes. He’s festering now, in a miserable silence that Lance has no hope of ever understanding.

Until, finally, he tilts back his head and stares up at the stars.

“My mother isn’t well. She’s been in and out of institutions for the majority of my life. And she tries, when she remembers, to be a mother. But there isn’t enough of her left to be much of anyone anymore.”

Lance feels something hollow carving out in his chest. He feels as though his lungs are collapsing, as though his heart has hitched up so high in his throat that he couldn’t even manage to speak any scratchy words if he could find the right things to say.

This isn’t the narrative that he was expecting from Lotor now. This isn’t how he would have ever imagined for this interaction to go.

But Lotor, reliably, continues. After another deep breath, and a wry smile, so lonely and needy and so heartbreakingly vulnerable, up at the star-speckled sky, he unclenches his fists and runs open palms over the tops of his punch-stained thighs.

“I’d been alone for the majority of my life. You see, when you come from an affluent background, you must be vigilant at all times. You learn that people will pretend to care about you to gain something—be it money, or connections, or some other potential that they might see in you. And if you let them down, if you prove yourself to be unworthy, or they achieve their goals and get exactly what they were vying after, you’ll find that those supposed friends aren’t likely to stick around for very much longer.”

Lance watches as he tips his head to the side, as though he’s found something between the stars worth focusing on. As though somehow, the answers and the comfort that he might be seeking now might be hidden somewhere in the white specks of light a billion miles beyond the atmosphere. Lance thinks about the distant galaxy—about the time that it takes for a star’s light to reach Earth from so many light years away. And he wonders how long Lotor has been pretending to be perfect, if the residual light left within him, too, is something older, something that might have died inside of him years ago, that he’s barely managing to pretend that it still lives within him.

It’s a strangely painful thought. It’s an oddly poignant, unfamiliar way for him to find himself thinking about Lotor at all. But the way that Lotor is watching the sky now, as though there’s something up there that he might be able to pull down to bring any meaning to this dead-end life of his—Lance can’t say that it feels completely foreign.

He can’t say that he, too, hasn’t felt at times as though he’s been trapped in the bindings of his past, and the life crafted so thick and solid and inescapable around him.

He can’t say that he hasn’t wondered sometimes, too, if everything could somehow be easier if he were just born as someone else.

“But when I came here,” Lotor tells him, “I knew that no one would recognize me, or the burden of my father’s surname. I understood that my affluence might still set me apart from my peers, but perhaps I could find some sort of solace in the relative anonymity. I thought it would be peaceful and quiet. If I was to be lonely, at the very least I could be lonely without others constantly looking to gain something from my existence.”

The music and the idle chatter around them fills the gaps of their silence, as Lotor draws in another deep breath, and Lance fidgets in his seat. He’s having a lot of trouble focusing on one thing at once—on Lotor’s words, or the almost supernatural way that the dim light through the window is illuminating the shadows in his eyes. On the stain growing lighter as it dries on his shirt and pants, or his hands wringing together in some semblance of nervousness in his lap.

Lance finds himself torn between two very realistic possibilities now—the concept of himself, comforting Lotor, reassuring him that things will be okay, that he did the right thing coming here and starting over. That maybe things haven’t been perfect so far, but there’s more life to live, more people to meet, and maybe this change of scenery was exactly the right remedy to everything that has previously ailed him.

And then, the idea of perhaps just allowing Lotor to continue, taking all of this into consideration, but refusing to excuse all of his very questionable decisions just because he’s decided to unload this sob story in place of explaining, really,  _ anything _ that he promised that he would in his stupid letter.

Lotor’s eyes find him suddenly, and Lance’s breath feels pinned in his lungs. He feels suddenly very warm, suddenly put on the spot. He feels as though he’s standing in front of a large crowd of people, all looking right at him, and not just one very pathetic looking, juice-stained man, smiling at him now as though he’s somehow even more miraculous than all of the trillions of glittering stars in the sky.

Pinned open and dissected, vulnerable and on display. Lance isn’t sure why he feels like Lotor knows too much about him, when nothing throughout the last few weeks has given him any reason to believe that Lotor knows more about him than his face and his name.

And suddenly, Lotor laughs. It’s a small, quivering thing. And Lance might not have believed that it had come out of someone as proud and polished as Lotor if he couldn’t see his lips moving along with the sound of it.

“I do apologize,” Lotor tells him, “This must not seem even remotely relevant to you. But I assure you, everything that I’ve told you thus far is crucial to understanding my reasoning, and perhaps… the more bewildering aspects of my behavior since we met.”

Lance imagines that he must be making a peculiar expression in response to this, because Lotor laughs again.

“You see, when I first saw you, as I wrote about in one of my previous letters, there was an air about you—as though everything that you do is somehow so _ effortless _ . People naturally gravitate towards you. They like you immediately. They don’t need to know your name, or what you could provide for them—they just like you. They don’t need anything in return for your friendship. They don’t need to know your potential before you can earn their respect. I’d never known that a person could establish relationships with another person with such ease until I first laid eyes on you, laughing among your many friends in the courtyard. I didn’t understand it at first. I didn’t know why your relationships seemed so different than what I was accustomed to, so I must admit, I watched you—”

Lotor raises a hand just as Lance opens his mouth to voice his horror. It seems as though he has the self awareness to finally realize how creepy all of this is still managing to sound, even though it should be doing anything right now but making Lance feel even more on edge.

“—I tried to understand how you communicated with other people that might have been different from my own encounters. I understand that this might sound alarming, but I promise you, in the beginning, my interest in you was purely one of curiosity. I wanted to be more like you… like someone who can approach others with ease, without questioning their motives, and perhaps without even needing to.”

“But something changed,” Lance interjects, finally finding his voice. Lotor hesitates for a moment, caught between a smile and a nervous frown. Lance isn’t entirely comfortable seeing him so out of his element.

Despite everything that Lotor has done to humiliate the two of them so far, until this very moment, he’s handled even the most mortifying experiences with a pride and grace that Lance isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to understand.

“When I started paying closer attention to you,” Lotor tells him, his voice suddenly softer, suddenly less strained, as though the mere mention of Lance’s place in his life has slackened the coils winding so tightly around him, and he’s finally able to breathe freely, “I realized that I could never be like you. No one can possibly hope to hold a light to your beauty, but—but that’s far beyond the point. I apologize, I understand that you aren’t particularly receptive to my many compliments about your appearance. You are so much more than just a pretty face, after all.”

He waves a hand in the air, as though to dismiss the idea altogether. Lance wonders if now would be a pertinent time to mention that he definitely doesn’t mind being called attractive, if only Lotor could manage to do so in less pretentious and alarmingly  _ public _ ways.

Despite this, Lotor doesn’t stop to give him time. And privately, he’s thankful that he hasn’t been given the opportunity to most likely make this very precarious situation tip over in the least enjoyable direction.

The point of this, he thinks, is to hopefully make Lotor understand that he was coming on too strong. The matter of whether or not he’s allowed to continue “coming on” at all is still up for debate, but Lance thinks that, at the very least, if he eases off a little, acts a little bit less erratically, then all of this will be a whole lot easier to put up with.

“I realized, after quite some time of mulling it over—wondering why my heart beat so desperately whenever I spotted you around campus, why I couldn’t ever seem to get you off of my mind—that perhaps I didn’t want to be you. I wanted to be  _ with you _ instead. I guess I might have wanted to find myself within your gravitational pull, to be, perhaps, another person who loved you as you so deserve to be loved. Someone, at the very least, who could make you happy.”

Lotor is staring intensely at him now, watching him with dark eyes as the pool lights cast stripes from the water into the different shades of his striking, silvery hair—over the sides of his face, into the whitened, sharp surface of his teeth. He looks as though he’s speaking of something terribly important—as though this one simple conversation might be the most critical thing that he will ever undergo in his entire existence.

Lance swallows thickly. After his one feeble attempt at voicing his own opinion, he finds that he’s too weak now to do much of anything but allow this to happen.

Allow Lotor, finally, to speak with him like a normal person, just as he should have from the very beginning.

“I understand now that I could have went about this more tactfully. And I completely understand why you must have been put off by my grandiose behavior. I apologize, once again, for surely terrifying you and vexing you to such a degree, but… I have to admit that I’m not used to having to work so hard to earn another person’s admiration. I might have gone incredibly overboard in my enthusiasm to get your attention—”

Lance snorts a laugh, and even though Lotor narrows his eyes for a split second, he continues speaking as though Lance hasn’t interrupted him at all.

Lance has to hand it to him, really. He’s still managing to handle this entire horrible, awkward situation with an undeniable finesse.

“—but if you would give me the chance to make things up to you, or even just to start again… I can assure you that I’ve learned my lesson. If you could forgive me for overstepping so many boundaries, I would love nothing more than to meet again, as normal people, without the theatrics, but… I still understand if you decide that, given my indiscretions, I do not deserve it.”

And now, the spotlight is aimed back at Lance.

In the shadows at the edge of the pool, with his solo cup empty and now sat on the ground next to his seat. Among the murmured voices of Lotor’s beautiful friends, in this gargantuan yard behind a home too big for one person—Lance finds that he should really be pondering this more.

He thinks that he should be considering the pros and cons of this, deciding what he wants to do, moving forward. He should be taking into consideration all of the humiliation of the last few weeks—the terror, the confusion, the astounding aggravation.

He should feel more horrified about the idea that, suddenly, without much thought, he’s already made up his mind.

But instead, he sighs, stands, and extends a hand to help Lotor out of his seat as well.

His lips pull back into a smile—the first one, he realizes, that he’s ever offered to Lotor before.

“Why don’t we go somewhere more private?” He asks, dropping his head to the side and jerking it in the direction of the house, “You know, to get you out of that shirt. It looks pretty bad.”

Lotor, for a moment, looks as though he might object. For whatever reason, his cheeks darken, and he looks surprisingly, suddenly torn.

Lance understands the implications of his words perfectly well. It’s not a threat or a promise. It’s not an offer, in any shape or form.

But when Lotor seems to collect himself, when he reaches up and grasps Lance’s hand as well, pulling himself up to his feet, Lance isn’t sure why he isn’t more opposed to the idea of that sort of thing happening either.

Why, suddenly, getting Lotor alone seems to be exactly how he would like for this evening to end.

He reasons that he’s young, as the two of them round the pool together. He reasons that he has plenty of opportunities to make mistakes, to make regrettable decisions, to sleep with creeps who have stalked him for weeks on end—handsome creeps, clumsy, fumbling, hopeless romantics who just don’t know how to properly pursue love.

And so, passing through the thin crowds and slipping into the house, climbing the tall, winding staircase as Lotor leads him to his bedroom, Lance feels at peace with whatever incredibly stupid thing he’s about to do.

It’s about time, at the very least, that he does something interesting, something fun.

And if the very real potential of sleeping with the same guy who he’s claimed to hate for weeks now is some kind of mistake—

Well, he’ll just have to deal with that later.


	6. And Even with the Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _spoilers with no context: no country music, the illusion of time, and chun-li_
> 
>    
> traffy, i said some gross words in this and for that i am sorry

“You—” The sound his zipper makes as it’s being pulled down seems much too loud in the muffled quiet of Lotor’s bedroom— “You don’t have to do this,” he says again, his hands digging into the 1000 thread count sheets pulled over his bed.

From between his legs, Lance _—Lance McClain—_ tells him, “I don’t have to do anything, like ever. I just want to.” Carefully, somehow, but still in the same vein of exasperation as just about everything else he has told Lotor before tonight.

Lance continues to ease his zipper down, pull his pants down to mid-thigh with beautifully long-fingered hands that Lotor never thought to admire previous, but pauses once more when he hears the hitched gasp escape Lotor’s mouth. He moves his hands away and sits back on his heels with his head tilted up to look Lotor in the face.

“Look, man, do _you_ want to do this?” he asks, and in the gentlest tone of voice Lotor thinks he has ever used on him, adds, “It’s not a big deal if you say no. I’ll just leave.” Lance’s eyes, a deep churning blue in the low light of his bedroom, are also gentle. Reassuring Lotor that he could in fact refuse his advances and it would indeed be okay. He should have expected at least this much from any halfway decent person, and Lance far exceeds that standard already, but even this small reassurance makes Lotor’s heart squeeze in his chest.

He had no intentions of refusing Lance’s offer—still doesn’t—but in a situation where he is often happy to take initiative, Lotor instead has found himself hesitant, awkwardly so, for fear of this going the same way as all of his other interactions with Lance prior. He doesn’t want that. Not after the moment they had poolside what seems like just minutes ago.

And maybe going along with Lance isn’t very good for his heart, but for tonight Lotor is willing to pretend otherwise and indulge himself, even if just a little. His upbringing has taught him to be selfish, he thinks, and painfully aware of the true intentions of other people when they realize what they can get from him, but again—tonight, he will pretend otherwise, pretend that Lance, for all his reluctance and vitriol the past few weeks, is currently kneeling between his legs because he does, in fact, now feel the same way.

He just wants Lance to _like_ him. That is all he has ever wanted, the reason why he has made such fools out of the both of them the past few weeks, clearly with little progress. Foolishly, he thinks maybe this is his last chance, that tonight will spark the feelings in Lance that Lotor has hoped to kindle this entire time, not that this particular method has ever worked for him in this way before. “Messing around” with people, sharing an intimacy Lotor considers just a shade lighter than the verbal baring of his heart, has never kept them close in the way he wanted. Like with anything else, as soon as they’d gotten what _they_ wanted from him, they were quick to leave, and loud to announce what they’d taken.

Who’s to say Lance won’t do the same? What if this entire time Lotor was wrong about him, and instead he will leave like the others, taking a very big part of Lotor with him, bigger than anyone else has taken before, to flaunt and display as he pleases? After tonight Lance will show his friends the red, still-beating heart in his palm, and laugh at the blood dripping down his wrist, falling to form a pattern on the ground that looks mysteriously like the words _with love, Lotor._

The thing is, Lotor knows if that happened he wouldn’t mind at all. He almost wishes he would. He almost wishes he wasn’t the kind of person to be so head over heels that he would willingly give Lance anything he desired, no matter the expense. His knees are scraped up, tattered, and Lotor offers up the cage of his chest to be opened with a key only Lance has ever held.

“Or, uh, you don’t have to say no, I guess. I can just go anyway,” says Lance, looking self-conscious in the downward tug of the corners of his mouth and the drag of his hand through his hair.

“No! I mean, don’t leave. I’m sorry, I was just thinking.” Lotor decides then and there that the possible outcomes of tonight will be a problem for future him, and not current him, who has more pressing matters at hand to hopefully attend to.

Lance snorts. “About?”

Before he can stop it, Lotor admits, “You.”

“Oh my god, if you start reciting your love to me right now—”

“I won’t!” Lotor puts his hands up defensively. “I just didn’t… I was worried I’d be obligating you…” he trails off.

Around a sigh, Lance says, “You’re not. If I really didn’t wanna be here I wouldn’t be, and if _you_ don’t want to, you don’t have to be here either. Right?”

“Right.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Lance licks his lips, shifts his weight. Sitting like that must be uncomfortable, Lotor realizes. “Can I suck your dick now?”

Lotor nods. Lance rises to his knees again, and settles his palms along the tops of Lotor’s thighs as he leans in to mouth at the fabric clothing his cock, half-hard from the moments Lance had kissed him earlier while they were pressed closely to the wall. The dull friction paired with the gentle kneading of Lance’s fingers into his flesh is already enough to have heat curling low in his belly. He’s distantly aware of the tap of his own toes on the carpet when Lance’s mouth suckles gently at the head.

Those fingers make their way up to his waistband, tugging his underwear down to meet his jeans and then lower so they both pool at his ankles.

Lance clicks his tongue. “Of course.”

“What?”

Lance’s eyes flick up to meet his own. He takes Lotor into his hand, giving a testing squeeze and running it up and down the length once. Sizing him up. “Nothing,” he says, and there’s something kind of playful in his gaze.

Outside, there’s the faint rolling beat of music. Something slow, a song he probably wouldn’t listen to on his own. He wonders if Lance likes it.

He finds his hand carefully landing on the back of Lance’s head, in his soft brown hair, when he mouths at the base of his cock, drags up the shaft with the breadth of his tongue. His thumb presses just under the head, and Lotor has to let out a heavy breath that he pulls back in when Lance’s mouth opens and then closes his lips around it. He swirls his tongue once, twice, and then makes to swallow him down.

The shadows cast on Lance’s face by the dimmed string lights on the walls are striking. Lotor finds himself lost in the sweep of his lashes and the purse of his lips and the ascent of his cheekbones.

“Oh,” Lotor breathes, his hand drifting to rub at Lance’s nape. “That’s—”

The glance Lance gives him this time is shiny, eyes wet from the press of Lotor’s cock in his throat, and fluttering when he lowers his mouth just a bit, just enough for Lotor to feel him swallow and suck.

“Fuck.”

Lance pulls off with a wet sound, his lips wet too. He wraps his hand around the shaft again and jerks him quick, the sounds messy and loud between the two of them. _“Fuck.”_

“You sensitive, or am I just good?” His voice, usually smooth and a little airy, has a rougher edge to it now that Lotor decides sounds really good on him.

“Which do you prefer?” is his reply to Lance’s question. It earns him an eye roll and a cheeky grin. Not quite the beaming, friendly smile he’s longed for but it’s a huge improvement regardless. Lotor finds himself grinning back.

Lance thumbs over the leaking head, drips spit on it that he spreads with his hand to make the glide easier. His motions are a little rougher, quicker, so Lotor can feel the anticipation collecting in his body. When that mouth dips down over him again, it feels like his entire world narrows down to the feeling of Lance McClain taking his cock deep into his throat.

He can only hiss out another curse, licking his own lips. His other hand goes to cup the side of Lance’s face in a tender hold, and Lance pulls back and tilts his head just enough for Lotor to feel his own shape press against the inside of his cheek.

Truthfully, he can’t say he never imagined Lance in this position with him, or maybe in anything similar, but those were thoughts he allowed himself only fleetingly. The person he was so enamored with was worth much more than whatever fantasy he conjured up in the solitude of his head, too precious of a gem to be sullied by bodily desires, but the dirty sight he’s been privy to tonight sends a thrill up Lotor’s spine. He knows he isn’t the first or only person to bear the privilege of Lance’s mouth on them in this way, that would be a laughably naive thing to think, but he definitely wouldn’t mind being the last.

He also doesn’t mind how Lance hums around him, alternates between that and hollowing his cheeks out to suck hard. When he pulls back again his chest heaves while his hand works over the thickness of Lotor’s cock. His skin, it’s a shade or two above his own, but the subtle contrast is enthralling all the same. Lance has nice skin, along with a nice everything else.

Lotor rubs small circles with his thumb by the corner of Lance’s eyes like a soothing gesture. His other hand is still resting at the back of his head, careful not to tug too harshly at his hair. Everything about Lotor wants to be gentle with Lance. It isn’t that he thinks Lance is fragile by any means, rather, he wants to touch him only with reverence. He’s indulging himself with the tenderness of his touch, making this feel more personal than it might actually be.

The song outside changes, and Lotor blurts out, “What kind of music do you like?”

The furrow of Lance’s brow only cements the out-of-placeness of Lotor’s question. To his credit, he continues to work his thumb over the head of his cock.

“Dude, why are you asking me this _now?”_ His voice is suspicious, and his eyes narrowed to a squint, but Lance still looks like he wants to laugh.

As for the answer to his question, Lotor himself isn’t at all sure why he felt so compelled to ask right at that moment about Lance’s personal preferences. Maybe that’s something he should have done long ago.

He settles for a shrug, and: “I was thinking about it earlier.”

Lance hums and licks his lips. Lotor admires their deep red color. “I mean, I’ll listen to anything, I guess. I actually liked that song you blasted in front of my apartment that one night.” His voice is lilting, teasing, and a little feeling of hope sparks in Lotor’s chest upon realizing that the more mortifying encounters they’ve had are now becoming memories to laugh and joke about.

“You like Nicki Minaj.”

“Well, _duh,_ but not enough to get into it right now. Just let me blow you.” And just like that, Lance runs the flat of his tongue along the ridge of his cock so he can close his mouth around the head and lavish it. The wet heat of it has Lotor’s toes curling.

Lance doesn’t take him as deep this time, opting instead to bob his head in quick messy succession while his right hand twists around the base with gentle squeezes. His left, which had been palming at the front of his jeans, drifts to knead easily at his sac. The curl of heat in Lotor’s belly tightens exponentially, enough to where he thinks it’s almost on this side of too much when Lance pulls off with a filthy smack and stands, tugging his own shirt off and stepping out his pants. His body is everything Lotor imagined and somehow more: a wide slope of round-capped shoulders, taut stomach, the beginnings of a sculpted chest, all covered in an expanse of smooth, unblemished tan skin.

Lance continues to be an ethereal beauty the likes of which Lotor has never known. Even with his socks still on.

When he notices him staring, Lance says, “Like what you see?”

He settles himself in Lotor’s lap, a warm weight, and his brain short circuits at the feeling of those lean thighs bracketing his hips.

“I do,” he says, belatedly. He looks down at Lance, just as hard as he is, flushed dark, and his own mouth waters. His hand wraps easily around the both of them without a second thought and the sudden arch of Lance’s spine is something to revel in. Their cocks rub hotly together, delicious friction creating a pull behind Lotor’s navel.

  
After licking a broad wet stripe across his palm, Lance puts his hand right above Lotor’s so they move in tandem and breathes high and whiny, a sound Lotor thinks will constantly reappear in his dreams after this. When he chances a look at Lance’s face, he’s thoroughly pleased by the watercolor flush bleeding across his cheeks and the stormy haze of his eyes.

The urge to run his other hand across Lance’s deliciously available skin is too strong to resist; he settles his palm at Lance’s hip and presses sharply into the supple flesh before making his way up higher, to the barest curve of his waist where his hand covers an overly-satisfying amount of it. If he gripped Lance’s sides with both hands, would his fingertips touch? Could he wrap a hand around one of Lance’s thighs with the same ease as his cock?

He’s lightheaded, all the available blood in his body having long made the trip to his cock and possibly suffocating what brain cells he has left, but for this moment, this experience with Lance, Lotor absolutely thinks it’s worth it.

Lance sucks in a harsh breath when Lotor rolls a nipple between his fingers. “Fuck, god, please tell me you have lube—”

With a heart-stopping bang, Lotor’s bedroom door swings open, and the colorful lights of the party shine over their bodies in an overly exposed and thoroughly horrifying manner.

“OH my god!” is the drawn-out cry of the two girls standing in the doorway, sloshed beyond belief if their slouched, tilted posture and rosy cheeks are any indication. “We’re _SO_ SORRY! We were looking for the BATHROOM!” They’re giggling uncontrollably and leaning on each other for support. Clearly, shouting unnecessarily is incredibly taxing in their drunken stupor.

There’s a choked sound that Lotor knows he himself isn’t making, so it must be Lance, who looks like he’s trying to glare at the girls in hopes they leave more quickly, but with the near-fucked out look on his face Lotor doubts it is any kind of intimidating. Rather, it’s almost cute. To avoid having to make any sort of eye contact with their sudden visitors, Lotor lays his forehead against Lance’s chest.

“Damn, _knock_ or something!” he says, in that scratchy voice, that vibrates right against Lotor’s ear.

The girls are still laughing at them. “SORRY!”

“Just get out, oh my god,” Lance says in a much higher, long-suffering tone of voice that Lotor will absolutely never blame him for. The worst, most unbearable kinds of confrontation, he’s found, tend to happen when your dick is out.

He still huffs out a small laugh, breath damp against the heat of Lance’s skin. “The bathroom is two doors down,” he says into it, just loud enough for them to hear as well. “And close the door.”

“Yas thank you!” reply the girls, and only now does Lotor realize they’ve been talking in unison this entire time.

The door slams behind them with just as loud a bang as when it had opened, and once again Lotor and Lance are left in near-silence. Lotor can clearly hear and feel the fluttering thump of Lance’s heartbeat.

A few seconds, then Lance snorts, laughs. He leans his head back to look at the ceiling.

“We’re just meant to be humiliated together, aren’t we? My life will never know peace,” he groans.

“I suppose so,” Lotor says, pulling away to look at Lance with a grin, who looks down at him in return. His eyes shine bright with his laughter, and they hold each other’s gaze perhaps longer than necessary. These are the kind of looks Lotor has longed for, something almost fond and fun, and now that he’s gotten a taste he knows it’s something he wouldn’t mind getting used to.

Lance gulps, loud in the space between them. He blinks once, twice, shaking his head as if to rid himself of an intrusive thought. His hand resumes its movement, and Lotor is reminded of the slightly-softened flesh in their grips before he begins moving his hand as well to coax them back to full hardness.

“I do have lubricant, by the way.”

“Yeah?” Lance bites his lip. “You wanna grab it? ”

He slides off Lotor’s lap, who immediately misses the weight of him, as he crawls over the large bed to reach into a drawer and pull it out and hand over to Lance, along with a couple of condoms, just in case, that he tosses somewhere on the bed.

“You or me?” asks Lance, but a quick drag of his eyes over Lotor’s body answers his question. “Me. C’mere.”

He lies back with his legs spread enough for Lotor to fit between them, drips lube over Lotor’s cock and his own fingers. He’s reaching down between his legs to start working himself open when Lotor stops him by grabbing his wrist.

“Let me. I haven’t done very much here,” he says, quiet.

“Yeah. Okay. I’m not about to complain.” He wipes some of the lube on his hand onto Lotor’s instead, settles back onto his elbows with his leg drawn up a little higher.

There’s the smallest jerk of his hips when Lotor presses two fingers just behind his balls, then drags them back a little farther to rub at his hole. He circles gently, while his mouth finally latches itself to the underside of Lance’s cock to press wet sucking kisses along the length of it. When he reaches the head he wastes no time in swirling his tongue around it .

 _“Oh,_ shit, how long have you been waiting to do that—!” His hips make to jerk up into Lotor’s mouth but he holds them steady as he pushes a finger into the tight close of his hole with ease, which he juxtaposes with a hard suck on his cock. The moan that spills from Lance’s mouth is nothing short of delicious, going to straight to his own cock, now painfully hard and he’s painfully aware.

Lance is already grinding down on his finger and asking breathlessly for another—who is Lotor to refuse his request? He could never say no to anything Lance asks, so he presses in his index finger as well and drives them in and out in a steady rhythm.

There’s a wet pop when he takes his mouth off Lance, moving over to nibble unabashedly at the soft insides of his thighs. He wants to suck bruises into them, but something tells him Lance isn’t the type to enjoy that. He’ll settle for the faint red prints his teeth leave behind that fade just as quickly as they’re made.

“Lance.” It’s the first time either of them say a name. Lance maybe realizes this, because his head snaps up to look at Lotor, who doesn’t have anything pressing to say, he just wants to see Lance’s face when—

“Mmmfuck!” There it is, a particular smooth spot his fingers brush over when he curls them upward just so. He can’t help grinning, prodding at it a little more to coax out more moans, like music to his ears. It doesn’t take very long at all for Lance’s breathing to pick up into needy little gasps and all it does is spur Lotor on to continue his ministrations, watch Lance unravel before his very eyes.

“Shhhhit, there, there, there—” Lotor never took Lance for a babbler, but it makes sense. He’s always talking, isn’t he?

An especially high keen pulls at the coils that were long tightening in Lotor’s body, and all too soon he feels his cock, caught between his body and the bed, jerk and spill onto his stomach as his body contracts with a groan. Fuck. Fucking fuck. Goddammit. Has it been that long, since he last did this, for him to be so quick with his orgasm? Fuck.

He can’t believe it, but he should. Lance was right, when he said they were meant to be humiliated together—not that he considers this his most humiliating moment, not by a longshot—because it seems as though nothing will ever go as smoothly as he hopes, at least when Lance is involved.

“H-hey… did you like, come?” Lance is asking through heaving pants, because Lotor’s fingers have paused inside his body.

Lotor can only nod. He’s received with a bark of a laugh, and then Lance is clapping his hand over his mouth when Lotor gives him a flat look.

“Sorry, it’s not that funny—or like, at all—I guess I just. I dunno. Didn’t think you liked me that much.” His smirk is another expression Lotor has never been privy to until tonight. How he feels about it, he doesn’t know yet.

“It’s not…” _That,_ he wants to say, but to blame it on the span of time since his last sexual encounter is such a lame, overused excuse that he doubts Lance would actually care. It’s not like his honor is in very good standing in Lance’s eyes as it is. He may as well play along, it won’t kill him.

“Actually, I guess it is. You just have this effect on me, I am not equipped to handle your _exquisite_ beauty.” He’s only half-kidding.

Lance knocks his thigh into the side of Lotor’s head with a slap, his face showing amusement thinly-veiled by ‘displeasure.’ “I hate that you’d say that with your fingers shoved up my ass.”

Lotor shrugs. “You hate a lot of what I do, it seems.” He pulls his fingers out with a soft _shlick_ to trace up his perineum, roll his balls in his palm.

“That’s _ssooohh_ wow, you know I don’t hate that,” Lance says, his train of thought derailed by Lotor taking his cock back into his mouth, all the way into the close of his throat where he swallows around the head. Tears begin to prick at his eyes, saliva leaking from the corners of his mouth so he decides to mimic Lance’s actions from earlier, bobbing his head up and down the upper half while using his hand on the rest, sucking on the upward drag.

Hands fly to tangle in the mess of his hair, not pushing or pulling in any particular direction, Lance’s nails instead digging into his scalp in a delicious mix of pleasure-pain that makes Lotor’s eyes flutter. He can tell Lance is close by the aborted gasps and continuous tensing of his abs, along with the choked out:

“I’m gonna—come!” And then he’s tumbling over the edge of whatever cliff he’s been on, shooting hot into Lotor’s mouth, and like the overachiever he is, Lotor swallows it all and makes sure to lick up any cum that didn’t make it in. He runs his tongue over his lips to collect the last few remnants of salt.

Lance sits up, looking dazed. He’s still panting, continues to do so for a few moments until he catches his breath. Thankfully, Lotor can already feel himself beginning to harden, meaning they can make use of those condoms soon—

“Aw man, is that the time?” Lance manages to say, squinting at the wall behind Lotor. He scrambles to get off the bed, roughly yanking on his jeans and putting his shirt on backwards but not making any other motion to correct it. “I really gotta go, I have… things to do. Tomorrow.”

The disappointment drops heavily in Lotor’s chest, like a stone, but he’s quick to brush it away. It’s easy, when he thinks of the fact that he just had the pleasure of making Lance come right here in his bed, something that was never supposed to be within his reach. Fate was kind enough to grant him this one victory, hard-won as it was, and he should be appreciative. Even if Lotor knows there’s no clock in his room.

“I’ll see you in class?” Lance looks at him lightly, but stands awkwardly, with his shoes in his hands.

“Mm. You will,” Lotor tells him, and he offers the smallest of smiles. He’s already looking forward to their next lecture, and what that says about him he already knows. He’s so desperate, hopeless.

Lance walks over to the door, jokingly scrunches his nose when he sees it isn’t locked. “Nice. Uh, thanks for that.”

He walks out before Lotor can even tell him _of course,_ and he’s left alone again, in a scene painfully reminiscent of his past experiences, and something tells him current Lotor has just become future Lotor, the one taxed with dealing with the consequences of his decisions. Like always.

Funny enough, Nicki Minaj is playing downstairs.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello it’s kris again, sorry! please note that the quality of this porn does not reflect on the quality of moth, mai, and epi’s porn which is substantially better
> 
> anyways, next week we will be back to our regularly scheduled enjoyable content, shoutout to mai uwuwuwuw
> 
> thank u for reading <3


	7. That You'll Never Love Me Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I woke up especially to post this so I'm sorry in advance for any mistakes I make :'^) But here it is!!! My last chapter... I hope you enjoy it Traffy, you are the light among the darkness that none of us deserve and I would inhale a thousand tomatoes for you <3 <3 <3

Lance is an idiot.

This isn't really a new revelation, but it's definitely a fact about himself that's been hitting particularly hard as of late.

It's been about six days since Lance had sucked and ducked out of Lotor's room. Six sleepless nights that he's spent staring at the ceiling, trapped deep in the vivid memories he’s desperately trying to ignore; the feeling of Lotor's lips against his, the gentle caresses to his cheek, the salty tang of his—

Six days have passed, a total of 144 hours, and Lance has avoided anything and everything to do with Lotor throughout all of them. He's skipped calc twice, eaten lunch hidden away in empty classrooms, laid as low as he possibly could in the stockroom at _Quizsnacks_ , and he hasn't dared to leave his apartment for anything other than classes and work.

Some might say these precautions are completely unnecessary, super dramatic, and irrefutable proof that Lance McClain is a big baby and a coward. To that, Lance would eloquently respond, ‘shut up’.

Right now, he's hunched over his desk, foolishly clinging to the delusion that he'll ever be able to focus on anything other than the events of that fateful Friday night. That if he glares hard enough at this innocent piece of paper, he’ll forget the sad smile that Lotor had the courtesy to offer him right before he bounced, one that triggers a sharp, regretful pang in his chest every time he remembers it.

He's been chewing on the tip of his pen for a solid 20 minutes now, staring at the first question of his English homework while still not having comprehended any of the words.

Lance doesn’t want to feel bad about leaving Lotor that night. He doesn’t want that weight constantly pushing down on his chest, getting heavier and heavier for each day that goes by in which he ghosts Lotor even further. Could do without the knot that ties up tight in his stomach whenever he thinks about it, or the guilt dragging on the heels of his feet.

Lance doesn’t want these feelings, but he’s come to accept that he probably deserves all of them and more.

It wasn’t really apart of his shoddily thrown together plan to tell any of his friends the gritty details of his failed sexcapade—in fact, he was supposed to leave Lotor’s house and forget any of it had ever happened. Move on with his life and never speak of his ‘Prince Charming’ again, at least, not until he could think of his face without an unwelcome flutter to his heartbeat, followed by the angry sting of his own betrayal.

Alas, Lance’s friends are smart. They figured out that something was bothering him within the first few hours of his mood change, and they were none too gentle in approaching this newfound aloofness when he’d told them he was going to skip out on lunch in the campus’s field.

Even though he’d waved them off then—and every other attempt to talk before—Hunk, of course, pulled Lance aside and used his completely unfair ‘ _Comforting Aura_ ’ to break him, always eager to cheer someone up when they were troubled. (Though, Lance suspected he just liked hearing juicy gossip most of the time.)

As expected, the sympathy was immediately sucked out of Hunk’s smile as soon as Lance had relayed a more PG version of the tale, but he was at least nice enough to pretend he didn't think Lance was a complete dick—and to share a little advice, despite Lance’s insistence that he didn’t need or want it.

Hunk's advice, much like everyone _else's_ advice when Hunk had inevitably told them why Lance was acting so off, was to actually _talk_ to Lotor instead of dodging him every chance he got. ‘You know, like a _good_ person,’ he’d said, expression laced with that know-it-all attitude Lance hated so much, even if it was usually justified.

Jerk.

But that was stupid. Impossible. Lance doesn’t need to talk to Lotor. He doesn’t _want_ to talk to Lotor! It’s a completely pointless and awkward conversation that he can avoid, because this is what Lance has wanted all along!

… Isn’t it?

That’s what he’d told his friends at least, but there’s no doubt in his mind that everyone knows he’s full of crap.

Just the mere thought of facing the guy after stumbling out of his house, no shoes on and his pants barely zipped up, had his stomach scrunching up in a forceful protest. They couldn't possibly understand how unbearable trying to explain that away would be, the absolute mortification of facing the consequences of his actions.

Lance had done something shitty and stupid, and he’d done it for reasons that were equally shitty and stupid.

Lotor invited him to that party to talk, no ulterior motives in sight other than to start fresh and try again. It was sweet of him, and it finally knocked the idea that this wasn’t just a game for Lotor firmly into Lance’s head. Having a normal, _human_ conversation with the guy brought into perspective all of the embarrassing stunts he’d pulled, erased all the malicious intent Lance had painted them with in his mind, and enlightened him to the dumb, clumsy attempts at wooing they really were—and then things just sort of…happened?

Who’s he kidding, Lance dragged that boy all the way to his room with the intention to suck the soul out of his dick, wholesome heart-to-heart be damned. He was the one that tainted the encounter, and apparently, even after being walked in on by two drunk girls with Lance Jr on full display, he still wasn’t satisfied with the level of awkwardness and embarrassment that had occurred that day.

So, he ran.

Lance got scared, and whether it was of the level of emotion radiating from Lotor’s every touch, the incessant pounding in his chest that beat louder than the music he was being asked about, or the realisation that he had no idea what he was trying to do anymore—Lance just didn’t know. So he did what any other idiot would do in his situation, and he ran away.

He doesn’t think it was entirely his fault, though. Lance may not be the king of one night stands or anything, but he's experienced enough to believe that nowhere in the rule book does it say 'make everything as tender as physically possible, and always feel free to treat a blowjob like a first date'. Common etiquette cannot be looking at the person with your dick in their mouth like they're your whole world and more—and if it is, then maybe that’s why he’s never received any call backs.

Either way, the gentleness in Lotor’s movements and the sincere affection in his words… Lance didn’t know what to do with any of it, and that frightened him into thinking he had no other choice but to flee. Any reasonable person would stop to consider that hey, maybe a discussion with the subject of your newly realised affection is a better idea than running away from a potentially great relationship—but clearly, Lance wasn’t a reasonable person. Not even close.

Lotor just isn’t like anyone he’s ever met before, an entirely new person with a mix of characteristics that Lance has no plan of interaction for.

Sure, he shares similar traits with the snobby rich kids Lance has had the misfortune to know in the past, but looking just a fraction deeper into his personality reveals a unique blend of strengths and flaws. Someone entirely different from the perfect and elite human being he appears to be, with a whole lot more to offer besides a lot of money and good looks.

If he hadn’t judged a book by its cover, or had at least read the _blurb_ , Lance might have seen that Lotor had a new story to tell, something exciting and interesting instead of another rehash of the same old fairy tales. He might have figured out sooner that it was a story he desperately wants to hear.

With a heavy sigh filled with theatrics he doesn’t really deserve to perform, Lance flicks off his lamp and pushes away from the desk, tossing his now thoroughly nibbled pen somewhere he isn’t paying attention to. It’s not even dark out and he already feels exhausted, crawling limp-limbed into bed and burying his face in his pile of pillows.

Maybe sleeping his problems away is the best course of action. Maybe, if he sleeps long enough, he’ll wake up in the past, to six days ago, and be given the opportunity to unfuck this situation that he had no real reason to put his dick in. Kinda like _Groundhog Day_ , but Groundhog Gay.

It’s with these thoughts that Lance closes his eyes, relaxes his body, and attempts to fall away into a dream world, where he’s as good at relationships as he’s always claims to be…

…

His bedroom door slams open and Lance is almost certain he jumps up high enough to nearly touch the plastic stars stuck to his ceiling.

“Hey ma— oh. Woah, sorry, were you sleeping?” Hunk asks with enough decency to sound somewhat apologetic, though that doesn’t seem to stop him from all but slapping the lightswitch, pouring bright light into the room and practically scorching Lance’s corneas.

Turning his head to the side and squinting at the intruding figure, Lance can only grunt in response.

“Oh okay, good! You got a letter, I think it’s from Lotor...” Before Hunk can even lift said letter up for display, Lance is already tumbling onto the floor in his haste to procure it. Like the good pal he is, Hunk makes no move to shorten the journey, choosing instead to watch his friend flop around like a fish out of water while he tries to remember how legs work. He’s laughing, of course. They always laugh.

As soon as he makes it to his feet, Lance practically snatches the plain white envelope from Hunk’s weak grip, and he nearly falls to his knees when he sees the aggravatingly curly calligraphy of his name.

He realises, belatedly, that he didn’t exactly play the part of a guy who doesn’t ‘ _need_ or _want_ to talk to Lotor!’, but honestly, at this point he’s not even fooling himself.

After clearing his throat and offering Hunk an awkward little ‘thanks’, Lance side eyes his friend as he leaves, watching the door until it clicks shut and seals him away from the outside world once more.

He barely wastes a second tearing into the unnecessarily high quality envelope, ripping away at it like it’s the wrapper to a lunchable and Lance is a hungry middle schooler.

Maybe he didn’t fuck this up completely, he thinks. Maybe Lotor really is the kind of guy who’s persistent enough, even after being the victim of a literal dine and dash featuring his dick, to continue foolishly fighting for a relationship that must surely seem hopeless in his eyes. Maybe, if luck would have it, whatever gods that might exist have smiled upon Lance one last time, and after the monstrosity of a love letter that could be on this paper, he’ll have another chance to turn this around. A chance Lotor himself tried to take, that Lance threw back in his face.

With more nervousness than he’d like to admit, Lance stares at the neatly folded (and now slightly crumpled, thanks to his own eagerness) paper in his hands, fiddling with the corners as he gulps down an anxious lump that’s suddenly lodged itself in his throat.

He pushes back the anxiousness clawing its way to the forefront of his mind, clinging desperately to all the positive possibilities that could be set off with this new letter. There’s no point in dwelling on it, not when the answers are already at his fingertips.

His fingers tremble ever so slightly when he unfolds the paper, willing the pounding in his chest to quiet down enough for him to focus on the lovingly handwritten words, as practiced and flawless as Lance has come to learn Lotor is not.

 

_Dearest Lance,_

_This letter shall be the last you receive from me._

_I am not a complete fool, though my actions thus far may have deceived you. I know when to quit, and I know when I have failed. I do not wish to inconvenience you or upset you any more than I already have, and I am truly sorry for the trouble I have caused already._

_In this final note, I implore you to hear my feelings one last time, or just allow me to get them out whilst I still can._

_I have met many people in my time - some kind, some cruel, and some plain evil - but not a single one of them has impacted my life as earth shatteringly as you have. Although I accept you will never feel the same, I don’t believe there will be a day in which my heart doesn’t beat solely for you._

_Our interactions have been short, and often unsuccessful, but I am eternally grateful for your patience and kindness. You have given me the most valuable gift I’ll ever receive: you. A memory of you, to be exact. Your dazzling smile, melodious laugh, your stunning blue eyes, and the person behind such beauty who I know I’ve only scratched the surface of._

_My biggest regret is that I didn’t get to know you, in all your glorious—and not so glorious—states of being._

_I wish I had thought to approach this differently, but I know wishes cannot change the past. I only hope that you will one day find it within your gracious heart to forgive my shortcomings, though I understand if you cannot._

_All I want to achieve with this letter is to tell you that you are free from all this. Please don’t feel it necessary to skip our shared classes, or hide away in the back room at your place of work—I promise not to approach you again._

_Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all of the courtesy you have shown me. You are truly a man like no other, and I will never forget you nor the way you made me feel._

_With love, always,_

_Lotor_

 

Lance swallows thickly as his fingers grip tighter to the edges of the letter. His jaw trembles, eyes burn and vision blurs with the weight slamming down on him, the crushing feeling pulverizing his chest, strangling him of every breath left in his lungs.

So this really was the final straw for Lotor.

Who can blame him? Any sane person would have quit the minute Lance walked away from that ridiculous serenade. Honestly, what was he expecting after doing everything he possibly could to seem unreceptive to Lotor? Even a man like him, filled to the brim with persistence and determination, would have a limit somewhere. Lance found the end of Lotor’s rope, and he found it in the form of another ridiculously dramatic letter that hurts in all the wrong ways.

He rubs harshly at the dampness around his eyes, scrubbing away the salty liquid before it can do more than wet his lashes. He doesn’t deserve to cry over this, not when this outcome is what he should have been expecting from the start.

How long did he think Lotor would keep chasing him? How many times did he think Lotor would make a fool of himself? When Lance ran out of that McMansion, did he really believe another unintelligible love letter was coming his way, to be followed up with some other ridiculous romcom-esque stunt?

Lotor may be a romantically inept idiot, someone who can’t take the loudest of hints, has no self-awareness, and appears on the surface to be a ‘holier-than-thou’ brat living off daddy’s credit card—but Lance is almost just as inept, as well as far more selfish, and unbelievably _stubborn_.

Lance has regularly proven that he's the type of person that would cut off his nose to spite his face. When a handsome rich boy saunters into his life, all straight pearly smiles and doused with a model's beauty, smart, charming, and irrefutably better than Lance himself— well, there's no way his attraction would outweigh his jealousy and bitterness. It’s especially hard when their first encounter could so easily be taken as a challenge, and if Lance is good at anything, it’s convincing himself of the stupidest shit.

All the public embarrassments didn’t help, nor the awful love letters, borderline stalking, and the unbelievably cheesy selection of old love songs. It was all too easy to believe the unpleasant theories he’d cooked up in his head, the most effective method of ignoring the fact he was into a guy so far out of his league that Lance wasn’t even sure he was in a league anymore. That if said guy so much as winked in any direction, he’d be getting all the attention Lance had been vying for since his earliest years of high school.

The truth is, amongst all the things Lotor had done ‘wrong’, Lance had never really tried that hard to stop any of it, and he knows that deep down, it’s because he just didn’t want it to end.

After reading that first corny dictionary/letter, he knew this wasn’t really an inescapable situation. He could have called the police, or told his calc professor, or gone on less over-dramatic rants to his friends and family and asked for some real advice.

Lance could have done all of that, but instead, he let Lotor continue.

Maybe at first it was out of curiosity, some kind of intrigue at what the fool would do next—but it quickly turned almost… flattering, that someone was willing to put themselves through so much failure and humiliation for him. When he wasn’t busy convincing himself it was all a cruel joke or the thoughtless actions of a sheltered lizard-man, that is.

The point is, Lance didn’t hate Lotor’s actions as much as he let on. He might even go so far as to say he kind of looked forward to some excitement in his otherwise bland life—and after the party, well… Lance isn't so sure he can so brazenly call it love just yet, but he’s ready to admit he's at least ‘in like’ with Lotor. (Being hit with that realisation while watching him cum may not be the most _romantic_ , but what can you do.)

This whole situation is definitely a failure on both parts, (mostly Lotor’s,) but Lance can’t deny that he was the one who hammered the final nail into the coffin, and now he’s left with nothing to do but wallow in his own unjustified self-pity.

He doesn’t know at what point he’d sat down on his carpeted floor, so he decides not to think about it and drops the rest of his weight backwards to embrace the unvacuumed ground.

A flawed plan, it seems, because he sat just close enough to his bed that his head bumped against the frame before thudding against the floor. He doesn’t have the emotional energy to do anything more than whine loudly at the painful throb, like the pathetic baby he really is.

Through the ache, his brain provides him a cursed memory in what he guesses is an attempt at self comfort, except it’s one of the same memories that have been echoing around him at all hours of the night, keeping him wide awake and aware of what a garbage human being his mom managed to birth.

Lighthearted laughter bubbles from the lips of Lotor—flashback Lotor—and despite the grand escape the he knows soon follows it, that doesn’t stop the small smile from tugging at the corners of Lance’s mouth, or the soft warmth that stirs in his chest.

It’s a chain reaction, of course. When he thinks about Lotor’s laugh, he then thinks about his smile, all dopey and sweet and ever so slightly lopsided. Leading him up to those striking blue eyes—Lance has blue eyes too, but he’s never been that struck when looking in the mirror. Then again, he can’t really look at himself as softly as Lotor did no matter how hard he tries.

When he’s being forced to remember these things, chest filling up with stupid giddy butterflies while his stomach drops into the deepest, darkest pit in his body, Lance begins to understand why Lotor felt the need to use such annoyingly big words to describe something so mundane.

Which gets him thinking about the letters, and the conversations, and the earnest lilt of Lotor’s voice whenever he called his name, the open honesty he’d trusted with Lance when he’d bared his soul in the hopes of a second chance.

And then it always comes back to the dread, the regret, that he must seem just like those people Lotor knew before. The awful snakes that coiled around him tight and squeezed him for all he had; be it wealth, connections, or in this case, dick.

It’s a hard thing to realise. He knows he shouldn’t necessarily put himself in that category, considering those weren’t his intentions at all, but it leaves an awful taste in his mouth to think that may be how Lotor sees him now.

He hasn’t got any room to deny it, he just wishes he could at least… make it up to him. Apologise. Whatever would be the best course of action without setting this whole cycle back to the beginning.

Lance doesn’t want it to end like this, so anticlimactic and sad. He doesn’t want to think back at these memories with such regret, or lose the chance to tell what will likely be a hilarious story, all because he was too much of a baby to admit out loud he wanted to smooch the so-called ‘caviar-guzzling swamp creature’ from his calc class.

So Lance decides to remove his head from his own ass for a second, to take a step back from his pathetic pity party and _think_.

Maybe there is a way to make it up to Lotor—one that he can’t chicken out of part way through, where he can’t reset back to his manufactured mode of ‘I hate Lotor and every stupid idea in his stupid, pretty head’ as soon as this particular hurdle has been jumped over.

With too much vigor, Lance tries to sit up without thinking about how his head is now slightly under his own bed, and then he’s stumbling towards his desk with a hand nursing his forehead, cursing at every evil deity using him for cheap gags like this.

His chair creaks angrily as he drops all his weight on it, hands already flying to his desk to pull out his least crinkled stack of paper and feeling around on the ground for his forgotten pen.

This plan of his may not be even close to as embarrassing as what Lotor would do, but then again, Lance doesn’t think anyone but Lotor has the mix of confidence and cluelessness to pull that kind of shit unironically. Still, if Lance has any hopes of making this right, then he’s got to learn and adapt—to take a page from a book the man himself wrote.

With that, Lance pulls up a thesaurus on his phone, puts his pen to the paper, and writes.

 

* * *

 

Friday morning arrives, and for the first time in months, Lance McClain is early to class.

Admittedly, he doesn’t plan on staying long, but he knows his calc professor is always late to his early lessons. If he’s lucky, maybe Lance will be able to execute this plan with enough time to ask one of the other students for their notes.

In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have skipped one of the classes he’s struggling most in, though, it’s not like he’d be able to focus with Lotor sitting behind him anyway. If the kicked puppy looks from before were bad, he can’t begin to imagine the kind of expressions he’d be forced to ignore for two hours straight after what happened last Friday.

Lance is anxious. He has no idea how Lotor managed to do this so many times without even a hint of nerves, and the wetter his hands get while clutching the once dry envelope, the more he’s starting to believe it was all down to some kind of witchcraft or satanic ritual.

He’s been awkwardly lingering by the doorway for about five minutes now, scuffing his shoes against the carpeted floor and pretending to look at a pile of books on one of the desks at the front. The few students who had arrived before him were already sat in their assigned seats, staring what felt like burning holes in the back of his head—which was fair, because he was acting like a freak, clutching a soggy letter and staring wide eyed at what he’s come to realise are a couple of childbirth books someone seems to have left behind.

All he has to do is put the note on Lotor’s desk and leave. It should be easy, he just has to turn around, put it on the table, and then he’ll be home free.

It’s hard though. Really hard. There’s a quiet whisper of fear that sticks his feet to the ground, telling him about all the terrible outcomes that will surely come if he goes through with this.

Lotor could laugh at him, or get upset, read his letter out to the entire class as one last spiteful shot at the boy who broke his heart. Or what if it really _was_ all a joke, and this is what it’s all been—

God, he’s really gotta stop doing that.

For a moment, Lance wonders if Lotor ever had these thoughts, or if he really did go into every interaction with such a naively positive outlook. Maybe Lotor’s palms got just as sweaty, his heart pounded just as hard, and his body was just as unwilling to move.

Well, if Lotor could play romantic music to the wrong bedroom window and still come out smiling, then Lance sure as heck could put a letter on a desk without immediately backflipping off the nearest roof.

With his mind made up—which is helpful, because time is quickly running out before class officially starts—Lance gracefully and inconspicuously weaves through the steady stream of tired college kids to the row of desks farthest to the left, slamming the letter on the desk and making the girl sat behind it startle from her nap.

He did it. The envelope is down, his soul is free, he can now fling himself into the library and demand Hunk reward him with some freshly baked cinnamon rolls.

Lance scuttles away quickly, back towards the door, his holy exit, dodging the next few students entering and already drooling at the idea of eating his weight in baked goods.

He spares one quick glance to the letter, both for the dramatics and to double check he got the right desk—and it’s a damn good thing he did, because hey, that’s not Lotor picking up the note!

Time seems to slow down as his eyes land back on his letter, though instead of being atop Lotor’s desk like he had once thought, it’s now in the hands of some guy Lance is pretty sure is named Todd.

His stomach drops so far Lance is surprised it doesn’t hit the ground between his legs. He doesn’t even take a second to think before he’s rushing straight through the rows, stumbling over chairs, tables, and bags in his haste. He knocks a lot of things over, elbows a few people in the head, and trips over a perfectly placed bag strap while he snatches the letter from ‘Todd’s hands, sprawling painfully over the desk in front of him.

A moment passes where there is complete silence in the classroom.

It doesn’t last long before everything catches up to Lance—breathing heavy and expression nearly _manic_ —who had momentarily forgotten everything he’d ever learned in life except ‘letter on the wrong desk, bad, must stop’.

The students are laughing, Todd looks understandably confused, and Lance has gone so red he isn’t sure there’s blood in any other area of his body right now.

“HAHA whoops! Sorry man, I totally thought this was _my_ desk! My bad, won’t happen again, have a good math, thanks—” He’s smiling through the pain, though everyone can surely see the suffering in his eyes. He backs up almost as clumsily as he’d ran forward, but at least the people filming him (again, goddammit) had the courtesy to make a little path for him this time.

As soon as he exits the fray enough to escape, he ducks his head low and power walks out of the door, down the hallway and—

And…

Straight into the man of the hour, Lotor, and his lovingly sculpted chest.

Because of course he does! Of course he slams nose first into those rock hard abs, of course he nearly falls flat on his ass, of course he gets caught last minute by Lotor, and _of course_ he freezes on the spot the second his eyes meet with the icy blue he’s been avoiding all week!

Of course.

At least this time neither of them are holding a drink, which Lance will take as a small victory amongst this steaming pile of losses.

The situation is nearly suffocating, wound tight around his throat and lungs—or it could just be that Lance has forgotten how to breathe—but one thing he knows for sure is he’s definitely not ready to hear whatever Lotor’s opening his mouth to say.

In all his panicked and flustered glory, Lance shoves the now crumpled, sweat covered letter into Lotor’s chest with an audible thump, wincing a little at the quiet ‘oof’ the guy lets out afterwards.

“Uhh, th-this is for you,” he stammers, gaze dropping to his feet so Lotor can’t see the unfiltered yearning for death behind his eyes, or the scorching red heat washing over his cheeks and ears.

Before any questions can be asked that Lance isn’t equipped to answer right now, he feels his face scrunch up into a tight grimace, sidesteps past Lotor, bolts, and leaves with nothing but a squeaked out, “Sorry, bye-”

He doesn’t stop moving this time, weaving through the building with his brows furrowed like he’s constipated, keeping himself on high alert for anyone else the universe may want him to accidentally roundhouse kick or something.

As soon as he reaches the double doors leading outside, Lance steps into the mockingly cheerful sunlight, spins himself around, and drops his forehead onto the dirty brick wall.

Amidst the ungodly noises he makes at the building—a skillfully mashed together soundtrack of sobbing, groaning, and whispered screams—Lance realises he’s never needed Lotor to embarrass himself, because that power’s been within him all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you couldn't tell by the sub par writing, it's Mai again uwuwuwuw I hope this was at least coherent, I struggled writing this chapter way more than the first... 
> 
> It's been a real honor writing for this fic, and I'm so jazzed with how everything's playing out... Thanks to everyone for letting me in your Cool Kids Club, and thank you Traffy for being a saint-like being worthy of every gift in the universe <3 <3 <3 And of course, thank you everyone for reading!!!! We're coming to the end soon, but I can say without a doubt that Epi's ending is beautiful and amazing and everything you could possibly hope for in this disaster of a love story, so stay tuned!!


	8. With Love, Lotor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’d like to preface this chapter by letting you know that microsoft word’s find synonyms feature was terribly abused in the making of this fic
> 
> this one's for you, traffs

~~_ Dear _ ~~

~~_ My dearest _ ~~

_ To Lotor, _

_ Greetings. So. I am contrite for aggregate. I was kind of a phallus. _

_ I don’t abhor you. I don’t covet you to cease communicating with me either. So I don’t know. Do you aspire to maybe rendezvous sometime? Grab midday meal or whatever. Do something convivial. You know. Just the bilaterality of us. No guitars or barbershop quartets or boomboxes or anything. You and me. A diverting assemblage. Like... _

_ A date I guess? _

_ Anyway if you’re acquiescent you should come to the park tomorrow at two post meridian. I’ll anticipate you at the fountain. _

_ Behold you then. _

~~_ From, _ ~~

~~_ Your friend, _ ~~

~~_ With love, _ ~~

_ -Lance _

_ P.S. Sorry I can’t write a nice letter like you. _

Lotor isn’t sure if the wrinkles at the corners of the letter are from his own fingers, or if they were an artifact left over from when the envelope was shoved into his hands. They could very well be either. Lance wasn’t handling it with particular care before it came into Lotor’s possession, but Lotor hasn’t put it down since then, reading the words over and over and over while waiting for his heart to stop pounding.

Once again, his attention zeroes in on those two incredible words.  _ A date. A date. A date. _

If Lance hadn’t handed this letter to Lotor himself, Lotor would think it was a counterfeit. If Lance crashing into his chest hadn’t painfully knocked the air out of him, he would think that this has all been a dream. If Lotor’s own name wasn’t chickenscratched across the top line, he would imagine that there had been some mistake. If it wasn’t absolutely incoherent at some places, written by someone who had possibly never picked up a dictionary in their life, he would consider that maybe one of his own friends had written it to him as a joke.

There’s a part of him that insists that this is too good to be true. That after everything that happened, after his trials and tribulations at  _ Quizsnacks _ and their encounter at the party and the subsequent days of complete avoidance, surely there wasn’t even a sliver of a chance that Lance would want to be around him ever again.

Perhaps when Lance had run into him in the hallway, Lotor had actually fallen to the ground and cracked his skull against the generic school linoleum flooring, and this is the dream his brain has invented in his current comatose state. After all, Lotor had completely given up hope. He had resigned himself to the fact that no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried and strived towards his goals, he was set up to fail. All his well-laid plans had gone to waste. He had never had the potential for forming close, affectionate relations the way his peers did. The idea that someone who cared about him for something other than his connections, than his money, than the  _ swish _ of his long hair and the flash of his eyes from behind his designer sunglasses could possibly want to spend time with him was absolutely ludicrous.

And yet, Lotor carries the proof of it in his fingers. The words scrawled across this paper, pocked with eraser holes and scored with crossed-out words, are clearly an invitation to the unbelievable. A date with Lance.  _ A date with Lance. _

Over the course of the rest of the day, Lotor checks his pockets incessantly to confirm that the letter still exists and was not merely some figment of his imagination. When he arrives at home after his classes, he smooths it out carefully on his desk and reads the words again, to ascertain that they have not somehow rearranged themselves since he last read them. But while the writing may be faded and the paper crinkled with wear, the glorious sentences are all still there.

He barely manages to fall asleep that night, the paper resting atop his bedside table. When he wakes, it’s the first thing he sees, and he’s filled with joy to know that it didn’t disappear like mist in the middle of the night.  

Truly, the excitement Lotor feels now is paralleled by nothing but his nerves. As he tries to go about his morning, straightening his bedroom and calling Allura three separate times to ask her about his wardrobe options, his mind is on nothing but how this could play out. He knows that he doesn’t deserve this chance. He knows that he drove Lance to the edge of his sanity with his constant unwelcomed behavior. He knows that their...ahem,  _ interaction _ at his party was Lance’s way of saying, “Farewell, never contact me again.”

And yet. And yet! Perhaps it was Lotor’s most recent letter that convinced him, or perhaps Lance had just needed some space. Either way, his writing is clear. He seems willing to not only meet with Lotor. But give him the one thing that has been Lotor’s fondest wish since the beginning.

This may be Lotor’s final chance. He can’t afford to mess this one up.

He picks out a blue button-up, so pale it’s almost white. But the color is just strong enough to bring out his eyes, which he hopes will make him even remotely worthy of standing beside someone as beautiful as Lance. He chooses his favorite khakis to complement it. Then returns them in favor of a pair of dark-wash jeans. Then the khakis again. He checks the weather. It’s supposed to be sunny all day. He looks outside, and there is nary a cloud.

Nothing will ruin this. Nothing  _ can _ ruin this, or all will be lost.

The last week in Lotor’s life has been empty, meaningless. He’s gone through it like a zombie, animated only by his coffee imported directly from Colombia and the off chance that he might see Lance around campus. It seems silly, he knows, to be missing something that was never his. To be heartbroken with a heart that was never truly whole in the first place. And yet, when Lance stumbled out of his bedroom that night one week ago, he left behind not only a permanent punch stain, but also a man with his ribcage constricting around his lungs. There was an unnameable emotion that had cut off the passage in Lotor’s throat then, watching the door slam so hard behind Lance that it bounced back open to reveal the two drunk girls from earlier, their eyes wide and their gaping mouths hidden behind their hands.

They hadn’t made any move to close the door themselves, so Lotor had risen from the bed in a state of complete undress and ignored their stares as he shut it himself. He had then retreated back to his bed, laid down, and not risen until Allura had banged on his door at noon the next day.

Then he had found his shirt on the floor. The same one that Lance had helped him out the night before, splattered with red like a Pollock and smelling faintly of a tropical blend. For so long it was all Lotor had to remember Lance by. He left it unwashed on his desk, knowing that this stain was the largest physical lasting impact that Lance would ever have on his life. He had looked at it mournfully every day when he had come back from a lecture where Lance was suspiciously absent. He had told himself that one day this pain would fade, and then he would get his shirt professionally washed, freeing himself forever from the marks that someone as bright and fruity as Lance had ever left on his life.

But that was before class yesterday. Now he has this last shot. Lance had asked him on a  _ date _ . That doesn’t mean nothing.

After his excruciatingly impatient morning, Lotor leaves his front door at exactly 1:30 pm with hope rising in his chest. He has plenty of time to walk to the park and still get there early, as he wants to prove to Lance that he is nothing if not a punctual lover. Something makes him pause and glance towards the sky as he steps down the paved path on his perfectly-manicured lawn. It’s grown overcast since this morning, but he has the utmost trust in his weather app, which continues to advertise a 0% chance of rain.

He’s about halfway to the park when the sky abruptly opens up and dumps a torrent of water on him and everything in the area.

The cold of the water, the pelting of it against his skin, shocks him into momentary motionlessness. And as the rain soaks into his hair and his clothes, dripping relentlessly downwards towards the ground, it takes his hope with it.

Lance is waiting for him in the park. There’s no cover there, not near the fountain, not  _ anywhere _ . Surely, surely, Lance wouldn’t stand waiting for Lotor in this. In this cold rain that burst from the sky out of nowhere. Not Lance, who had already been driven to the edge by Lotor. Not Lance, who certainly has no patience for any of this anymore, thanks to how much and how often he’s been troubled by his affiliation with Lotor.

Lotor breaks into a run. Maybe he can catch Lance before he leaves. That is, if Lance had ever shown up in the first place. If he hadn’t decided last second that none of this really matters to him, that Lotor isn’t worth it. As he maybe should have. Lotor doesn’t care if people stare, if people think that the man tearing through the rain without an umbrella looks strange. He has more important things to worry about than looking stupid. When it comes to Lance, he always has.

By the time Lotor dashes into the park, his clothing is soaked through. He knows his normally perfect hair is limp and flaccid with rainwater, and drops trail down from his forehead to sting in his eyes. His shoes squelch in the mud, his socks uncomfortably moist around his ankles and his toes. He knows that even if Lance is here, he doesn’t present a very desirable image. Maybe Lance will take one look at him and decide he wants nothing to do with such a waterlogged rat.

He hurries down the trail to the fountain, ignoring the cold splashes that the leaves above deposit onto his head. His heart is in his throat. If Lance isn’t there, after all this, then Lotor will want nothing more than to dissolve to nothing in the water that pours down from the heavens.

Lotor arrives at the fountain, and slides to a stop on the wet flagstone around it, barely keeping himself balanced. He looks around frantically, searching for the one person who could make even this terrible weather feel sunny.

And there, sitting on the ledge of the fountain, is Lance. He’s soaked from head to toe, his shoulders hunched forward, and his face downturned. On his lap is a very wet bundle of flowers. When he hears Lotor’s footsteps, he raises his head. Their gazes lock.  

“Oh,” Lance says, eyes wide. He stands, suddenly, the bedraggled bouquet in his hands dropping petals around his feet. “You came.”

“Of course I came,” Lotor replies just over the sound of the rain against the pavement. Even with his hair plastered wet and flat against his head, with his clothes clinging to the outline of his body, Lotor has never seen anyone as beautiful as Lance. He draws closer to watch the way that raindrops gather in Lance’s matted-together eyelashes and drop off the ends. “You waited.”

“Yeah,” Lance says. “I….”

He glances about himself, as though he’d forgotten what he was doing. Then his face reddens.

“These are for you,” he says, thrusting the bouquet out towards Lotor.

It’s pitiful. The remaining blue flowers are soaked through and drooping. But Lotor has never been more grateful to receive anything in his life.

He takes the flowers gingerly from Lance’s hand, ignoring the thrill that wracks his heart when their wet fingers brush against each other. He admires the wrecked shape of the petals, their exquisite hue, and wonders if it’s possible that Lance picked them out because their color reminded him of his own eyes.

“Thank you,” he says. “They’re beautiful.”

“They  _ were _ before it started raining,” Lance says. He shuffles against the wet pavement. “Man. I had this whole thing planned.” He gestures towards a bag sitting on the fountain ledge. “I brought some food and I thought we could have a nice picnic or something, but now…” He looks up at the sky. “I don’t think it’s gonna happen.”

“Lance,” Lotor says with the last of the breath, because he feels as though the rest of it has been knocked straight out of his lungs. Lance prepared this...for  _ him _ ?

“I know, I know,” Lance says. “It’s shitty. It was a stupid idea in the first place. I should’ve checked the weather or whatever but--”

“Lance,” Lotor says again, with more force this time.

Lance doesn't stop talking though.

"I mean, I also brought you this letter!" He whips a soaked-through envelope out of his pocket, and struggles with the flap as it sticks to itself. "I wrote it myself. Thinking of you, and the stuff you usually write for me." Eventually he manages to pry it open and extricates the paper from within. It looks especially flimsy, and Lotor thinks he can make out grid lines. "I don't think it'll be nearly as good as yours but...."

Lance trails off, and Lotor watches his eyes go wide as he takes in the paper in his hands. Somehow, it's not what he expected to pull out of his pocket, Lotor can see that clear in his face.

"Lance," Lotor tries one more time, but Lance isn't listening to him. He can tell by the way his shoulders are braced, stiffened in a straight, brave line, how his chin is tilted up as though if he lets it lower even a fraction it'll weigh his entire body down. Lotor understands that sort of put-on confidence, the sort where you can’t go home so you’ve already committed to going big, the kind that looks impressive but is crushed under just a little too much pressure.

Lotor doesn't want to see that. He wants Lance to feel comfortable. But Lance is already taking an enormous gasp of air into his lungs as though preparing himself for an opera performance.

As much as Lotor adores Lance, he hopes this is not that.

Though once Lance begins to talk, Lotor thinks that opera, possibly, would have been preferable. At least, in that situation, he might have understood. At least he may have heard the various dulcet tones of Lance's singing voice and been able to correctly identify the composer. What's coming out of Lance's mouth now, conversely, is utterly incomprehensible.

"Dear Lotor," Lance begins, with more bluster than form. "I wish to elu...eludicate... _ e-lu-KI-dat... _ elu….”

Lotor takes pity on the suffering creature before him and cuts in swiftly. 

"Do you mean elucidate?" 

Lance blinks at him. "Uh. I don't know. Do I?"

Lotor leans forward to take a better look at the paper that Lance appears to be reading off of. With numbers scribbled in pencil crammed margin to margin, it doesn't look like a letter at all. 

“Lance,” Lotor says. “Lance, stop. Is that your calculus homework?”

Like they’re suddenly collapsing under the weight of the pelting rain, Lance’s shoulders drop. He doesn’t even attempt to stop Lotor from plucking the paper out of his hands when he reaches to. Lotor finds numbers and equations scribbled all over its incredibly damp surface. 

“Number five is incorrect,” Lotor says distractedly, squinting and trying to make sense of the page.

Lance sighs a deep, heavy sigh.

"Look, I'm really sorry," he says towards the wet concrete under his soles. "I thought I grabbed the letter but I guess I grabbed my homework by accident. I thought maybe I could recite it to you but…."

"Lance," Lotor says, not for the first time.

But this time perhaps Lance is listening, because he lifts his head to look at Lotor. He's cute, and seeing this, knowing this, burns in Lotor's chest. This, and the obvious amount of effort he's put into this date. How much he prepared, from the flowers to the food to the letter. Whether it went right or not, it doesn't change that Lance spent a long time agonizing over this, thinking about things that Lotor might like and trying to make it perfect for him.

Lotor is familiar with being in that position. With sleepless nights spent determining exactly what would please Lance, what would make him listen to Lotor's feelings and make him receptive to what Lotor had to say. And he's also familiar with the feeling of seeing all of it, all his sleep deprivation and detailed plans and hard work dissolving in his hands like a wet piece of graph paper.

He doesn't have any sympathy or pity for Lance right now, who is finally experiencing what Lotor has had to go through countless times since meeting him.

No, instead he has nothing but overwhelming affection. That Lance would see the efforts that Lotor made, the lengths he went to, and see fit to do the same for him.

"Lance, I don’t need a letter," Lotor says. "I appreciate your efforts, of course. It means a great deal to me that you would do this. All of this. But it isn’t what’s really important to me here."

Lance looks at him quizzically, cocking his head to the side. "It isn’t?"

"Of course not," Lotor says quietly. "All I've ever wanted from any of this is you. I don't need a letter or a fancy date or flowers."

For the first time since he's arrived, he sees Lance visibly relax. His shoulders smooth back, his chin lifts. Not artificially as before, but like it feels lighter. The rain runs to its point and gathers there, only to drip off.

"Is that all?" Lance asks.

Lotor smiles. And maybe, he realizes suddenly, that's all Lance has been looking for this whole time too. Not someone who can provide him gold-gilded love letters written on the most expensive stationery or someone who could invite him to the most lavish parties or someone who could give him expensive bouquets and hire barbershop quartets and play him overdramatic songs on the guitar in the quad. He just wants a person. Someone he can talk to, someone whose personality he can feel comfortable with, someone who understands him.

"That's all," Lotor replies.

Lance looks away and takes a deep breath.

“Can we just…,” he says. “Can we just start over? From the beginning? I think we’ve both done a pretty good job of screwing this up.”

Lotor laughs. “Perhaps we have. Alright then. Let’s start over. I’m Lotor.”

“Lance,” the other man replies, extending a hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Lotor takes it, feels the warmth of Lance’s palm against his own, the way his fingers curl. It’s nice. It’s really nice. Lotor hopes that he can hold this hand more often from now on.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” he says.

Their hands drop, and they both go silent, but not uncomfortably. Neither of them break eye contact or look away from each other, even after their self-introductions have faded to the backs of their minds. Lance is grinning a little up at Lotor, and Lotor is sure he has the expression to match. The tension that is holding them here isn’t a bad one. In fact, Lotor feels a little floaty.

“Aw, fuck it,” Lance says. And with that he steps in, springs up on his toes, and kisses Lotor.

Or at least, it seems that’s what his aim was. Instead he jams his nose against Lotor's, painfully. Their mouths somehow manage to meet, but their teeth clack against each other, and Lance flinches back in surprise. He looks surprised for a moment, until a smile overtakes his mouth.

"Sorry," he chuckles.

"It's quite alright," Lotor replies, and he keeps his voice quiet, tempered, because even though they've pulled apart from their failed kiss the space between them is intimate and personal. "Shall we try that again?"

He doesn't wait for Lance's answer. Instead he tilts his head to the side to avoid any nose-on-nose contact and slides in slowly, careful of his teeth. This time their lips meet first, Lance's perfectly smooth ones soft and warm against Lotor's own. They're both wet, but that doesn't stop Lotor from taking the half-step forward requisite to comfortably crane his neck down and feel Lance's body heat against him. It's nice, after the cold dampness of the rain. It's almost as nice as Lance's mouth on his, the pressure of it, then a brief distance, before moving in again for more.

Lotor gets a taste of him, a hint of potential, a promise of more. Lance's lips part and Lotor is beginning to think of all the ways he's going to love to taste the inside of Lance's mouth, his teeth, his tongue, but just as he's about to lean into it further a raucous sound reaches his ears. He barely has a moment to brace himself before something hits him with a shock.

He separates from Lance and glances about himself to find that his favorite khakis and his nice blue shirt have been splattered with mud. Lance is in a similar state, his eyes wide and his mouth popped open. The recently driven-through puddle beside them still tremors with the ripples left by the truck that's now rumbling down the road from them.

Both of them look at each other, and burst into laughter. It hurts to look at Lance’s smile; it feels too warm in Lotor’s chest. He ends up tucking his face into Lance’s hair. 

“Do you often kiss people immediately after meeting them?” Lotor laughs against Lance’s temple.

“Only if they’re rich and handsome,” Lance replies. “And uh, really,  _ really _ determined.”

“Good thing I meet all of those criteria,” Lotor says. 

“Yeah.” Lotor can’t see Lance’s smile, but he can hear it. “Good thing.”

After a moment of just holding onto Lance, it begins to occur to Lotor that he’s quite cold and wet. This thought seems to occur to Lance at the exact same moment, because he shuffles them gently apart and looks up at Lotor.

“Do you uh,” Lance says quietly, “wanna come over to my place? I can see if I have anything dry that’ll fit you and we can eat somewhere it’s not raining.”

Lotor smiles down at Lance. For the first time in a long while, he feels at ease. He’s not chasing. He’s not planning some grand public display, or balancing his entire happiness on whether Lance takes his flowers, appreciates his music, reads his letters. He didn’t come here today with the intention of impressing Lance with a wild over-the-top performance or confession. He only wanted to hear what Lance had to say, to talk with him, to make a connection with him. 

And, somehow, more than the visits to Lance’s job, more than the songs he played, more than the roses he picked out, more than the letters he wrote, it  _ worked _ . Now he finally has Lance in his arms and the promise of a cozy date in Lance’s apartment, and it feels better than he could have ever imagined.

“I would enjoy that, yes,” Lotor says.

And if when they get to Lance’s apartment Hunk and Pidge are both sitting in the living room and burst into whispered chatter behind cupped hands as soon as they see him, that’s alright. If Lance makes a show of grabbing him by the wrist and storming with him into his bedroom, that’s totally fine. If it takes until the second they pass through the door for Lance to remember that he left a dildo out on his bed and underwear littered across the floor and the biggest Sword Art Online poster Lotor has ever seen over his dresser, that’s cool. And if Lance falls flat on his ass when he tries to scramble to shove all of these things simultaneously into his closet, that’s absolutely, absolutely okay with Lotor.

If this is what he has to go through to be with Lance, then all of it, every single mortifying second, is completely and totally worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has really been quite the adventure, and there’s no one i would’ve rather gone on it with than the incredible authors and artists who pitched in on this fic. y’all are so talented and i love you guys to bits and pieces. it’s been an honor flying with you boys. but most importantly: 
> 
> WE LOVE YOU TRAFFY <3 <3 <3 
> 
> thank you so much for being you. i’m so happy to have met you and to call you my friend and i'm grateful every day that you're part of my life. and so with that, we love ltraffy finally comes to its conclusion.
> 
> …or does it


End file.
